Has anyone else experienced that thing where someone is overbearing and interfering in an 'oh so helpful way' and then weirdly becomes over entitled because of it?

[OhioOhioOhio]

Wtf is it?

I have recently had a situation where someone helped me with childcare.

They think they were phenomenal. I think they were equally good and an absolute interfering pain in the backside.

But because they did all sorts of 'extras' that were actually really intrusive and uncalled for it somehow permitted them to be more entitled to an opinion, or something like that.

It's so immature and bizarre. I can't quite get my head around it.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Add 'killing with kindness' to the list? It's an old saying, I think.

No question it is a control issue, sometimes passive aggressive and sometimes overt dominance/submission posturing.

My passive aggressive controlling mum lived with me the last 20 years of her life and I learned to go in the other room when she was on the phone so I wouldn't be upset by the things she told people about me. Most friends and family knew enough to take her stories with a salt shaker.

The overt favor sharking I have experienced has mostly been from men.

@53rdWay

Yes, this: -

"But still I get from other family, “oh she does so much for you!” and I have to bite my tongue not to say no, actually, she does stuff AT me."

This thread really has been a great help. As in actual help.

'Helping at me' is another excellent phrase.

But How do they not know that its AT you and not for you?
Or how do they allow them to overstep the normal boundaries?
And. Why do they think you'll tolerate it?

They think we will tolerate it because we do! If we consistently don’t allow it, they will sulk, etc but then eventually go find someone else to “help”.

Yy, thank you all so much for making me feel I'm not alone!

I keep going, "AIBU? Is it me?"

Well, it might be. But clearly it's them too!

One thing I can say for sure is that controllers never ask the "is it me or is it them" question cuz it couldn't possibly be them.

When I had DD we came home next day and DPs and GM came over to meet the baby. Normal. They brought food, ready meals etc etc. Normal and helpful. Really appreciated. A little overbearing when we realised they were planning to turn up every day and eat said meals with us, but still...

We had just had a new kitchen fitted, finished a couple of days before I went into labour. We'd been waiting for this kitchen for 10 years. I was so proud of it, the last one had been falling apart the whole time we had lived there.

DM rocked up the next day and cooked a roast dinner. Something boiled over all over the bottom of my brand new oven. I'd not even used it myself at that point other than for a frozen pizza, and she'd watched me wipe out the crumbs afterwards.

I only noticed the next day - I sat on the floor in front of the oven and just cried. I never got it clean. I spent half an hour scrubbing an oven that I could have spent with my 4 day old baby instead.

It's totally minor - sooner or later I would have got the oven dirty - but it was just this complete disregard for my thing that I was so delighted with, creating upset and work, but all in the process of doing something that I couldn't complain about without coming out of it as a complete bitch. And PND. That didn't help either tbh.

Oh I absolutely hear you, that specific mixture of sad, angry and helpless. At least there are many of us here who've experienced the same.

It's a particular form of discomfort when you're unable to assert your boundaries due to fear of feeling guilty and/or being criticised as selfish.

This thread's been really useful for me too.

Dd had a friend who has a mum like this. In the beginning I used to feel like I was being ungrateful because everyone thought she was do bloody Nice. In time I realised my initial feelings were spot on. It was hard to put a finger on exactly what she did because it was very subtle, like bringing 16 year old dd home with her after a party she was collecting the girls from rather than leaving her home because we were somewhere else and weren't going to be home till 1 am. We had agreed with dd that she was perfectly happy being home alone till then but friend's mother decided she wasn't. This meant we had to call to friend's house to collect at 1 am where the mum had helpfully stayed up to wait for us. The feeling I constantly had was of her patting my arm saying 'you're a really shit parent, but it's fine.... I have your back!' 😊

Help isn't helpful if it's not wanted. That's a phrase I have said to my dh more than once! When we first lived together, I put some dirty clothes in the machine intending to put them on ti wash when I got home. He finished work first, and proceeded to hang my dirty laundry out! We've been married almost 20 years, and I have now banned him from touching the washing. He does stuff though because he loves me, and because he can never sit still. If I'm around, I try and redirect him to DIY (that he hates), or doing stuff that I cant, like putting stuff in the attic. He still very much has the attitude that I need help, although I've told him to fuck off so many times that I'm always surprised when he tries to help in ways I don't want him to! And I would like him to help, just ask before! I work from home, so I usually have a plan of what needs doing when. Arrgghh! But he does love me, and I do love him. So not as serious as some of the other posts, but annoying all the same!

My DM used to do something sort of like this - but a kind of show-boating moralising empathy. But because it was all about showing what a good person she was (rather than real empathy), it used to come out in all sorts of twisted ways.

My DSis wrote a lengthy timeline chronicle of the various (physical/emotional/sexual) abuses she'd suffered from our father, with the intention of using it as the basis for prosecution.

She gave a copy to my DM (who'd always denied knowing anything). I watched with horror one night when staying there, as a handful of casual acquaintance/friends came around, and my DM passed around the (extremely personal) document as if it were the newest photo album.

She then got out tissues, dabbed at her eyes throughout whilst talking at length about how she'd been able to overcome and find it in herself to forgive him anyway.

I stole the document away when I left, because it was all of our childhoods' experiences being put on morbid display, and gave it back to my DSis who was also horrified.

I still find it bizarre that all her 'emotions' were reserved for relative strangers. As the children who were there, we all get nothing but absolute radio-silence/avoidance of the subject.

Another one who suffers from 'helpz' that's all about meeting others needs to be seen as helping, regardless of where it leaves me.

I'm in a wheelchair and can't help but notice that when I hold the door for others, which I do a lot, it's rightly just normal manners, but often when the person in front of me holds it for me there has to be a spiel about how they're doing it specially to 'help' me.
Well yes you are, but are you really telling me you're so ill mannered you don't do that for everyone?

I go through a complicated dance with one person who's a bit larger than average, and insists on barging ahead of me forcing me to brake, in order to hold the door by standing against it on tiptoes whilst trying to flatten themselves. Invariably one of their large bags swings down and clouts me as I try to squeeze through. They then try and get the other side while still holding it while I go under them and swinging obstacles.
Eventually said something and was told they where 'only helping.' Gently explained that if I can't get through and it's such a palaver every time, it doesn't really help, but passing me the door would. Got told "but it wouldn't look like I was helping!"
I get that they have low self esteem and don't want to be mean, but...

I also suffer the 'helpful' stowing of the wheelchair in a way that suits others regardless of what I explain, leaving me totally unable to get at it without someone else coming round to help, and many other apparently well intentioned acts that people insist on doing.

I also fail to be sufficiently grateful for unwanted 'helpz,' but it doesn't seem to reduce the frequency of it. Sometimes I think I'm just a bitch.

PatriciaBateman you posted wasn't there when I went to reply.

Dear God! I'm so sorry for you and your sister, that's appalling!
Well done for taking it. In the circumstances I don't see it as stealing it away', and definitely the right thing to do.

I also fail to be sufficiently grateful for unwanted 'helpz,' but it doesn't seem to reduce the frequency of it. Sometimes I think I'm just a bitch

No @AlltheRs I know EXACTLY what you mean here, EXACTLY

You know the expression "compassion fatigue"? I think I've ended up with "gratitude fatigue" because every day I'm constantly compelled to exhibit gratitude I don't feel for the sake of good manners. There are times when I feel conscious I'm being rude, but I've run out of gratitude to give, the same way people with compassion fatigue feel they no longer have sympathy to give.

Feeling like you always have to be "grateful" affects a persons self worth I think.

Feeling like you always have to be "grateful" affects a persons self worth

It totally does! I think it's essential for us to feel capable and to have autonomy, but having to be grateful (esp for something we didn't want) goes against this - puts us on the back foot, as someone said upthread.

Valley Clouds and Summer Pavillion Yes, yes, and yes!

I find myself being treated as both a responsibility and a chore by people I haven't ever asked to do anything, and in some cases individuals that would be over my dead body to ask, as well.
It came as a shock to discover they see themselves as having some sort of rights over me.

On occasions that I've got on with whatever on my own because there's no one who wont make a song and dance about it or do it so badly as to leave me worse off, I've found myself subjected to lectures about how my 'irresponsibility' in not asking for help causes distress and concern to others. Autonomy seems to equal selfishness.

Op: It does seem to be some sort of 'ownership' of those perceived to be somehow 'lesser.'

Is this the kind of thing people mean by virtue signalling? Like, it looks like you're doing a good thing but you're actually not?

Is it like virtue signalling?

Not sure, to me Virtue Signalling is more like somebody who shits on about how much the environment needs saving whilst simultaneously using loads of single use plastics.

Like posting repeatedly on Facebook about Time To Talk, and 1 in 4 people have mental health issues, whilst having not been anywhere near your mentally unwell nephew in about 3 years.

All words/sentiment, no action to back it

This is more like ploughing your way into someone's life with a boat load of action and no words

Eg "I know you struggle to get to the shops, so here's a load of shopping I got you, that'll be £50" when the person hasn't asked for shopping, doesn't want what's been bought, and doesn't have the £50.

Or

"I'm going to take Daisy out for the day, my treat, no buts. You need a day off!"

Only taking Daisy out for the day involves plying her with high sugar treats and dairy she's allergic to, so you end up, up all night with a high as a kite kid with the shits

And this narrative is then related to others at your expense by "Julie"

'Oh I had to buy Valley some groceries, she just struggles so much, she couldn't afford to pay me, but it doesn't matter, good deed for the day etc"

"You know, Phil really is struggling with Daisy, I don't see why, I took her out for the day, spoiled her a bit, she was great with me, Phil had a bit of a face when we got back, that day out cost me £££ she really should be more grateful"

That sort of thing

Gratitude Hoovering

I'm having to go AAARRGGGHHH! again just reading those. Valley, you're too good at this! Nail on the head.

Also yyy to this from AlltheRs:
I've got on with whatever on my own because there's no one who wont make a song and dance about it or do it so badly as to leave me worse off

I'd love help. Actual help. Instead I flog on alone because in the long run it's less hard work and more likely to get a good result than involving arseholes helpy people.

ANYONE who has had long term experience with either "Care Workers" or "Household Employees" will tell you that in amongst them will be amazing people, and there will be amazing people, there will be people whose need for you to constantly praise and validate them will be so physically and mentally draining you will wonder which of you is the employee.

This is basically SIL. She and DH are carers for MIL, but SIL delights in telling the world how she has "put her life on hold" (she hasn't) and all the effort she goes to for MIL. Her "effort" tends to be stuff for her benefit though, eg she will have to go on shopping trips into town every few days for MIL - with a nice coffee out of MILs money, and because of this "she never gets chance to do anything for herself". The shopping is generally stuff that could be ordered online and delivered in a day or so - SIL just loves to be able to say how much she goes out of her way to do things for others.

We cooked Christmas dinner this year at MILs, and when we arrived on Boxing Day SIL announces that she's been "cooking for the last hour". The look I got when I commented "why, you're only reheating leftovers" could have curdled milk.

I tend to leave DH to it. Not my circus and all that. It's only when she tries to make DH feel like crap that I have my say.

Has anyone got good comeback for someone who is regaling their efforts and somehow then expecting extra priorities, if you see what I mean?

They think we will tolerate it because we do! If we consistently don’t allow it, they will sulk, etc but then eventually go find someone else to “help”....or, if it is in a situation like ours, the whole thing turns into a shit storm with us painted in the most negative light possible and the Self Appointed Saviour portrayed as the victim.