Can be detrimental to your health and relationships.  I mentioned in my last post about Rescuer’s High. This is the feeling you get when you come in and fix everything for someone else.  The rush of feeling like a hero even if the solution was detrimental to the person being rescued. I didn’t understand the problem until I was in counseling and my counselor explained to me that part of what kept me in the unhealthy relationship with my mother is she expected me to rescue her and I was gratified and praised when I did.  I noticed the same thing in computer repair especially during finals, I would walk in the room and 3 or 4 people would be shouting my name to rescue them.  It is a rush to be needed and succeed and the praise that follows.  Sadly, it is a brief high and followed with higher and higher demands to reach that elusive high.  So what is so wrong with being a hero?  The World needs heroes that are willing to step up and make this a better place to live so what is the problem?  Several actually.

1. Rescuing others at the detriment of their personal growth or they could do it themselves.  Example….you can’t help a chick hatch, it kills the chick.
2. Rescuing when my own problems are ignored.  It is more comfortable to solve someone else’s problem while ignoring my own.  Example…..washing you friends dishes when your sink is over flowing with dishes.
3. Needing a bigger and bigger rescue to get the same rush.  Like anything else our body adapts and it takes a bigger rescue to have the same adrenal rush.  Example…..looking for bigger and better ways to rescue while ignoring yours and their personal growth.

So what do we need instead?  Being willing to support and encourage others to solve their own problems.  Take care of personal problems and issues before running around to help someone else.  Take on a new challenge but don’t be looking for that instant rush….look for long time goals that benefit yourself and others in a healthy way.  Being raised in a toxic environment it took me awhile to see the problems involved with the rescue-praise-slump-do it again cycle.  I still like helping others but I recognize the need to teach the other person to feel empowered instead of helpless.

Solving problems takes personal work.  Doing it for them doesn’t always help.