I'm a 'fixer' and I wear myself out!

[recoveringfixer]

Any recovering 'fixers' out there? How did you learn to stop being the first to jump in help and 'fix' everything?

For context, suspect my love language is 'acts of service' so I do enjoy offering help if people ask for it. Need an emergency babysitter? Ring me. Need someone to drop off food cause you're stuck with Covid, I'm the one. Problem is, I so readily and quickly agree to things and then end up wearing myself out.

Recently, my elderly relative has decided to have a special party for a big birthday. They don't have anyone else who will help plan the day though their partner has a big family. Enter me, party planner!

I think it was just assumed I'd do it all and I launched headfirst into planning until a friend pointed out I was giving up 1 week of precious annual leave to do it plus getting increasingly knackered and run down. I've had to step back a bit. It's not a job I asked for but my relative hinted strongly and as usual I was the first to volunteer.

Even a few minutes ago my friend was telling me how her house was a mess as she'd been sick all week with a stomach bug. I'm just recovering from flu myself and my first thought was, 'I'll offer to go and wash her dishes'. I can barely get off the sofa! I must be insane!

And no, it doesn't mean I'm especially a kind or nice person, it makes me a person who consistently ignores my own needs over someone else's. No idea where it comes from but just wondering if anyone else has 'recovered' from this and how you began?

Being what my parents and family needed me to be was how I got the absolute basics of my emotional needs met as a child @Allytheapple
I totally get this. It's taken me YEARS to reverse this. I've lost so many friends (possible narcs?) because I made the necessary changes to protect my own energy.

You're definitely not alone @recoveringfixer

I always have to stop, breathe and take a step back. The words "no" or "sorry busy" are my new friends.

Practical suggestion:

Every time someone asks you for a favour, take a few seconds to respond.

Listen to your gut...

Then say either:

"I'm afraid this won't be possible "

Or "can I get back to you on this" (use this only if you really feel you can't say no outright, which should be extremely rarely; then, if you really don't want to do it, come back with "I've thought about xyz but it won't be possible").

Do not elaborate or explain. Repeat if necessary or change the subject.

If nothing else, it'll show you who your real friends are.

I am trying to stop being a rescuer. The drama triangle made so much sense to me, some of the inlaws are perpetual victims and we had the same dramas played out again and again over the years. I dropped my role of superhero, flying in to the rescue but it took a long, long time where they were still giving me my cue. I tried giving them the support they needed to fix their own problems but what they wanted was someone to do it for them - they turned to other family members to rescue them rather than do it themselves. That is their choice, it's my choice not to get drawn in to their drama.

I was surprised to find that it wasn't my job to make other people happy because that was exactly what I was raised to do. I wish I'd challenged my upbringing thirty years earlier, I would have been so much happier not trying to solve everyone else's problems and having the time to focus on my own.

It never feels like it at the time, with childhood stuff. It's just 'normal', because you have no life experience to tell you that there are other ways. It's very strong conditioning; we grow up thinking we're abnormal if we don't fit in with the way we were raised, but there are so many ways to be.
Your life is for you. Don't miss it. You're a lovely person, so if you're happy, you'll naturally be supportive. You don't have to try. Whatever's right will come and you can say no to everything else.

And no, it doesn't mean I'm especially a kind or nice person, it makes me a person who consistently ignores my own needs over someone else's.

Not exactly, it makes you someone who isn't a particularly kind or nice person AND who meets her own needs by 'buying' other people off with acts of service because it makes you feel powerful/needed/because your self-esteem is poor, so you don't think you're enough in yourself, without earning approval that way.

I think this is key -- that you recognise that this is a character flaw to be worked on, the way you would any other firmly-ingrained bad habit, like nail-biting or a diet of junk. It's not that you're a total sweetheart or that 'users' exploit you. You choose this, over and over. Ask yourself why.

I am the eldest daughter of a chronic people-pleaser and I can also say from a LOT of experience that it's not a way to build friendships and healthy relationships, and that it has a measurable negative impact on your children, if you have any. It's not accidental, either, that she surrounds herself with the ill, poor, unfortunate, needy etc -- they make her feel needed and powerful.

This actually sounds more like narcissism.

It may be your experience with your mother, but no, I don't feel 'powerful' or deliberately surround myself with needy people who I can 'buy off'.

I actually feel weary from it all which is why I've started counselling to learn how to stop doing it.

No good deed goes unpunished.

This has been very useful for me. I’m trying so hard to change the habits of a lifetime. I just don’t want to do it anymore, and @TintyMinty is quite right.
Be careful though. I almost said no recently to something that very much was my responsibility and was important. Having boundaries and helping people find their own solutions are good, but sometimes people really really need help. I realised in time, and help has been given, but it is targeted and specific, with clear expectations and honesty on both sides, and,I hope will be all the more effective for it. For one thing, I’m not pretending it’s a pleasure , or nothing. I’m letting them see the cost to me. And they are beginning to consider consequences, and take responsibility.
So, I’m thinking about your party planning, op, and maybe you can draw up a spread sheet with all you have done to date, marked in green with huge ticks. And outstanding tasks in red. Sit down and explain that your other commitments now must take priority, but help them think about how they can complete the preparations. 1 hour tops, let them buy the biscuits, at no point say sorry, and graciously accept their thanks.
Spend more time watching crap on telly!

@SpanishOnion

Not exactly, it makes you someone who isn't a particularly kind or nice person AND who meets her own needs by 'buying' other people off with acts of service because it makes you feel powerful/needed/because your self-esteem is poor, so you don't think you're enough in yourself, without earning approval that way

This isn't what OP has described at all. Your unpleasant LOT of experience with your mother isn't a universal experience upon which you can base sound advice, and many people with people pleaser/fixer behaviours are, and are generally regarded as, lovely, kind, sweet people, and they themselves are the ones who go without.

If your mother has affected your judgement to this extent, that you can't see any people pleaser as anything but the same as her, that's a great shame for you. Most decent people struggle every now and again between whether to help someone out or to take the rest they need for themselves. Some struggle more than others. It's not a sign of a hurtful or selfish character in everybody, like it is with your mother.

I feel your pain. I love fixing things, my dream is a gravestone saying “she was so wonderful, so competent, such a generous spirit”. And I would much rather be a fixer than be needy, or useless, or a selfish bitch. Which can lead to overcommitment (although less now I have an empty nest).

You don’t have to stop completely, you just have to cut back a bit. Be more selective. Practice delaying thoughts like do I have time for this, would I expect this person to do this for me, and I find “oh dear, that sounds tricky, what are you going to do about it?” Is a useful stalling phrase.

I had a loving caring upbringing; but my parent’s WW2 experiences drummed the values of self sacrifice and doing without into them, which combined with the gender bias of the day did leave me as a borderline martyr.

A really good point @Zebracat! I think the problem is that sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between 'my responsibility' and 'all responsibility'. So in a way 'everything' becomes my responsibility when really it's not*.
*
Like last week, a friend ordered a few outfits from different online shops and wanted to return them. She asked me to do it 'on my way past' and I said yes thinking it was just dropping something at the post office. Turns out none of the items were packaged properly and all had to go to different depot drop offs (post office/yodel/Evri drop off etc). So I had to buy sellotape and packaging, print off labels and repackage before going to different depots to drop them off.

Realised later that in this case, a better boundary would have been to say, 'yes, I'll drop them off but you need to package and label everything up first'. A sort of 'halfway boundary'. But instead I assumed the additional responsibility (which wasn't mine to assume) of repackaging/labelling etc.

I realised later what I'd done.

What is a 'parentified child'?

And also @recoveringfixer, no, my mother isn’t a narcissist. She’s a sweet, kind-hearted, meek person who hangs her entire life on helping people. She puts everyone ahead of herself. What she doesn’t understand about herself is that this comes from poor self-esteem, and the assumption that no one would want her around unless she was continually in a helping or supporting role. This in turn means that she tends to be surrounded by people who need her, and her entire conception of human relationships is based on ‘need’ and ‘fix’., and she has no boundaries and ‘can’t’ say no. Only of curse she could — but her needs are being fulfilled in some way by this deeply asymmetric set of relationships. She chooses it. She unconsciously needs to be needed, because she doesn’t think she’s ‘enough’ as a friend without helping like mad all the time. That is her attempt to grab power. That is why she has no happy individuals who have their lives well under control in her life, because there’s no ‘need’ for her there.

It is perfectly possible to be a sweet, self-sacrificing individual while being completely unaware of the (often quite dark) reasons you have chosen this role in life.

OP, ask yourself what needs of your own you’re fulfilling every time you leap to an act of service, the same way you would if you were trying to identify reasons you comfort eat (if you wanted to lose weight).

If you simply stopped offering, or said no when someone asked you for emergency babysitting, do you think those friendships/relationships would continue as before, or would they change?

If someone were able to wave a wand and say ‘You will never be asked to help anyone, ever again’, would you be relieved or uneasy?

@marmaladepop , it’s a child who takes on/is forced to take on a parental role, either for their parents, or their sibling/s — so it could be an elder sibling continually doing childcare, making dinner, bed and bath time, supervising homework etc for younger ones, or acting as a confidante/emotional crutch for a parent while still a child.

Apologies -- had forgotten I'd done my regular namechange between first and second posts. I was @SpanishOnion .

I yhink

I think what you are saying makes sense @SpanishOnion but it also makes difficult hearing.

My sister who was deeply abused in our family has taken on this fixer role within the family and my sister in law (FIL was abusive towards MIL and deeply controlling towards the rest of the family) has it too.

Equally a friend whose mother was a lovely woman but who nonetheless had significant mental health issues as my friend was growing up was parentified by her parents as the eldest daughter and still to this day is the first go to by her many siblings for absolutely everything. From the outside it looks like she is deeply bonded to her siblings but she has admitted that from the inside she struggles to meet her own needs and her kids needs as she is so overwhelmed trying to meet her siblings needs. So these behaviours don’t always stem from abusive circumstances but they do typically stem from our deepest childhood conditioning and messages we picked up about where our value as a person comes from.

I agree it's not nice to hear, @Allytheapple -- but I think it's important that it be said on these kinds of threads, where an OP is often either semi-congratulating herself on her people-pleasing ('I'm just too nice, and people take advantage!') or blaming other people for being 'users' without considering her own complicity in the dynamic. I think that recognising that it's a bad relationship habit, like being flaky or terminally unpunctual, or blowing pre-arranged activities off for a better offer, is a good place to start.

I don't think this OP is in fact doing either of those things, but they do crop up a lot on these kinds of thread.

I used to jump into a solver mode and have really been blamed for so many things so I now stay out of other people's trouble but yes I do have a tendency to over explain my self does anyone else do it ?

A good way to start setting boundaries is to realise you can't say yes to one thing, without saying no to another.

Sometimes the trade off is something you're happy to do once but not get into a rescuer role for, e.g. spending an hour or so looking after a friend's kid rather than just having tea as a family is ok once but a long term arrangement would limit the time you have to catch up with your own kids.

Sometimes you think the trade off is acceptable but you're neglecting yourself. E.g. trying to help your friend with flu but ending up limiting your own recovery.

Try to think "what will I have to say no to in order to say yes to this?" And get in the habit of realising that your free time is also important.

Look up Coda - or Adult children of Alcoholics AND dysfunctional families. Childhood Trauma can bring on these traits.
You are not alone.

@SpanishOnion You explained your point a little better the second time around! Your mum sounds lovely. 😘

The fact that I might be trying to meet my own unmet needs by meeting others' actually resonates with me. It's something the counsellor looked at last week. I'm also grieving the sudden loss of my mum and part of it (I suspect) is keeping busy, busy, busy so there's not much time to think. But sooner or later the emotions catch up and smack me in the face.

Deeply rooted patterns of behaviour are hard to untangle but the roots are different for everyone and there isn't one blanket answer that means all 'fixers' surround themselves with needy people so they can get off on being a saviour. I was friends (for a while) with someone like that. She was drawn to broken people and when she'd fixed them, she'd do her best to break them again with manipulative/abusive behaviour.

I'm trying to untangle and that's a slow process.

Just wanted to say that I had a counselling appointment this week and I think we actually hit the 'sore point' of where all the 'fixing' comes from. Bit too outing to share all the details as it's related to a traumatic event but it was a big 'lightbulb moment' for me. Thinking about it today, it's so incredibly obvious but I never saw it!

Been quite tearful today as I got my head around it all but I also feel (weirdly) that by saying it out loud and acknowledging it happened, something has shifted.

It's a good feeling...sort of like discovering the reason your leg aches so much is because there's a stone in your shoe...but the stone can be removed.

I was really resistant to the idea of counselling (fixers don't need help, after all!!) but it's been an insightful few days. There's hope for a life free of fixing stuff that's not my responsibility.

Oh well done. That does sound like a breakthrough. I’ve had a breakthrough too. I’m just not doing it any more. Not apologising, just saying no.