Helping others can be wonderfully rewarding. But when you take on their anxiety, you’re damaging yourself. Here are 5 red flags to watch out for.
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The exchange is an anxiety dump, an offload of their feelings of anger and helplessness onto you, a transfer of worry not so you can solve their problem but so they can ease their own tension.
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We’ve all been in this frustrating situation. Your partner, a relative, friend, or colleague pings you—often through multiple channels (text, Facebook messsage, email, voicemail)—to talk about how worried he or she is about something or inform you of a crisis needing immediate attention. And you immediately feel their anxiety. But the worries are generalized, and it’s not a logistical crisis, such as picking up a kid, getting to the cleaners before closing, changing last-minute party plans, or a work project gone awry. It’s an emotional issue that, once you engage with it, becomes your problem. You want to be understanding, compassionate, and helpful, and getting involved feels like the right thing to do. After all, someone you care about is upset and in need, and you have some pretty good ideas about what to do. But it’s often not advice the other person is seeking. The exchange is an anxiety dump, an offload of their feelings of anger and helplessness onto you, a transfer of worry not so you can solve their problem but so they can ease their own tension. When this happens, you’re being drawn in to a dysfunctional dynamic rather than sought for counsel and sensible solutions. But how can you tell the difference? Both requests come in the form of an appeal for help that only you can provide. Here are five red flags to help you recognize a genuine request for real assistance from being given a supporting role in someone else’s drama.
Unless someone is critically injured or dying or having an emotional breakdown, whatever it is can wait.
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1. The situation requires an immediate response. Unless someone is critically injured or dying or having an emotional breakdown, whatever it is can wait. The first sign that a person’s distress could be harmful—or toxic—to you is their refusal to respect your boundary of not answering and engaging right away. They keep at it until you respond, and they’re often upset with you for not responding sooner. They use the frame of a crisis to induce you to drop everything, because that’s what a crisis demands. It’s critical for you to take the lead in the pattern of interaction and make it clear that if you choose to help, it will be when you can and on your terms.
2. You feel flattered to have been asked and guilty saying no. The part of you that protects the self from harmful or taxing situations is a bundle of conflicts. On the one hand, you feel good about helping because you’re in a better place than the other person, but you also know that steering clear, or involving yourself minimally, is the healthiest course of action. And yet, you feel guilty about refusing someone in need. So you tell yourself, “I’m in good shape. I can handle it. And the need matches my skill set.” And at first, you do handle it. But as the demands grow greater, meeting them requires sacrifices, which you weigh against the pain you will cause by pulling away. Since most of us are wired to feel bad about hurting others, you let the other person’s needs trump your own. The trick here is to say no in the beginning and deal with any hurt then, instead of down the road when you’ll be removing support rather than refusing it.
The part of you that protects the self from harmful or taxing situations is a bundle of conflicts.
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3. You’re criticized and guilted if you don’t respond with help. You might be there 90% of the time for this person, but the 10% when you’re unavailable becomes the big issue. “Where were you when I needed you?” “You never answer your phone. You’re never there for me.” “You don’t care about me.” It doesn’t matter that you have been there and that you do care. The person feels invalidated and ignored in the moment and extrapolates to the absolute. There’s no point in defending yourself. The only thing you can say is, “I’m sorry you feel unsupported when I’m not available, but you need to take control of your own issues. I’m giving you everything I’m capable of giving, and you need to respect that.” Then formulate your strategy for walking away, because you’re in a no-win situation. Criticism and guilt are powerful motivators, but no amount of feel-good of appreciation you get from coming through for this person is worth the pain of having your contributions dismissed and invalidated.
By stepping in every time, you’re enabling the pattern to continue and possibly preventing the person from seeking professional help.
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4. Calling on you to put out fires is a pattern, not a one-time or rare occurrence. It’s one thing for someone to seek your help with an overwhelming situation. We all need support with stuff we can’t handle alone. But if their whole life, at least the parts of it you’re shown, is an overwhelming situation, you can easily get in over your head and above your pay grade. Think about what you’re actually qualified to do and what others, such as professionals, are more qualified to do. And think about your own contribution to the dynamic. By stepping in every time, you’re enabling the pattern to continue and possibly preventing the person from seeking professional help. The end result is that you’re not helping to solve the person’s problems but instead empowering them to avoid solving them in an appropriate way. The relationship becomes about your need to feel needed as much as or more than the other person’s real or invented needs. Focus your energy on your own pressing projects and your need to stay healthy and functional for the people who need you.
5. You begin to feel responsible for managing another person’s emotions. You know you didn’t cause the other person’s anxiety or worry, but you feel it’s your job to ameliorate it and restore their equilibrium. More than that, you internalize their suffering and suffer with them. While feeling, at least temporarily, another person’s suffering is one of the foundations of Buddhist compassion, and while empaths often cannot help experiencing other people’s feelings, at no point are you responsible for the quality of another person’s emotional experience. Nor do you need to allow their upset to throw you off balance. It’s easy and tempting to internalize someone’s anxiety about their own issues and begin to treat them as your problems, especially because countering their concerns only leads to conflict. The trick is to accept their worries and keep a healthy measure of distance and detachment from them. You surely have enough concerns of your own to deal with, and taking on someone else’s problems can be a way of avoiding yours.
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When we feel anxious, we make unhealthy decisions.
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Why is assuming another person’s anxiety so dangerous? Because when we feel anxious, we make unhealthy decisions, based on calming the anxiety instead of examining its causes, keeping a level head, and seeking real personal growth. Anxiety also masquerades as energy, making us feel charged and purposeful when we are in truth frittering our time away on something we cannot hope to change. Finally, anxiety and stress can affect our physical as well as our mental health, not just in the form of nervous tics, stress eating, and other coping mechanisms but also by suppressing our immune system. So step back and help in healthy ways, with healthy boundaries. And try to put the other person’s behavior in perspective. Imagine that you were facing a similar problem, and think about how you would reach out—how frequently and to whom. By all means, intervene in a real and present crisis. But don’t get drawn in to a pattern where you’re either a savior or a substitute for a qualified professional. It will only make you … anxious.
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This post has been republished to Medium.
Photo credit: iStock