Is this you?
“What do you need?”
“I’ll drop everything … for you … and almost everyone else.”
“I don’t need anything, thank you.”
“What do you need?” is the calling card of those who wear this interesting persona.
What this mask looks like:
Unlimited availability and a nearly endless amount of giving and caregiving extended to others. Wearers of this mask will make time for everyone else, somehow. They rarely, if ever, need help themselves.
Question:
What could be the drawback of always being available to help or rescue someone? How can generosity and a willingness to assist possibly be a problem?
“Answer”
When rescuing others is done at the expense of rescuing oneself.
Deep down, “Rescuers” tend to be among the most caring, giving, and selfless people around. They also tend to be the most exhausted.
Shall I explain?
Interestingly, the Mask of the Rescuer or Fixer is all about feeling compelled to help or fix others’ problems. (The operative word here is compelled.)
On the surface, it seems like a good thing – who doesn’t want to be helpful? But a deeper look reveals a mask that covers up an underlying, insatiable need to be needed. The Rescuer’s sense of herself is derived from helping others in jams, predicaments, and those at a loss for how to help themselves. Genuinely sensitive and empathic, the Rescuer’s compulsive need to save others is driven by deeper psychological forces that certainly include generosity and altruism but goes way beyond these attributes.
The Rescuer almost can’t help throwing everyone else a lifeline. Her self-esteem depends on how needed she is along with the satisfaction she derives from helping others. And, by the way, when these Rescuers rescue, they do so with the precision and attention to detail of a surgeon. They generally excel in their work lives. They take initiative, are typically well-organized, and are often highly-regarded by others.
Some ways in which the Rescuer rescues:
- Intervenes
- Does favors
- Picks up the slack
- Takes on others’ responsibilities
- Provides unlimited emotional support
- Covers for others’ mistakes
- Enables behaviors
- Sacrifices own needs
** It is important to note that it is the degree to which one automatically rescues that determines the problematic nature of this mask. So, think intensity.
Where did this mask come from?
The exact how and why varies from person-to-person but there are some common threads that unite all Rescuers. Individuals with this persona often have a history of loss, abandonment, or trauma. Due to the grief, illness, overwhelm, immaturity, or addiction of a parent or caregiver, they were thrust into the role of little hero. Here, a child will make astounding attempts to protect and provide for that parent. What’s more, using their heroics was their best hope for optimizing whatever love and parenting the caregiver could provide.
How the Rescuer likely feels inside:
Rescuers feel validated, loved, and safe when helping others, but deep within, people with this persona feel an underlying sense of longing and emptiness. On some level, they crave nothing more than being taken care of; of leaning on someone. They tend to feel highly uncomfortable with their own emotional needs and are generally at a loss for how to respond to them. Therefore, they avoid feeling them. Giving and over-giving, with no real sense of the cumulative emotional cost to themselves, they believe that their happiness lies in fixing others.
There is much more to this mask and understanding its layers and nuances can help you or someone you know look beneath it to harness the surprising potential that awaits (once you know what you’re looking for).
