Helping Others and Helping Yourself.

I never considered myself a very nurturing person. I was isolated from most of my peers during junior high and i was never able to keep a plant more then a week without killing it.

I have, however, ended up in a few relationships where I was the nurturer and the other person simply clinging to me with all their strength. This puts an enormous pressure on me, as I feel like I am the only thing holding thins person out of totaly depression, and yet the relationship is not healthy, and neither of us is growing together.

The best way I had of describing this feeling was making the exmple of a drowning man. The person is being pulled under by their baggage, both emotional and, perhaps, things that have happened in their life. They are being pulled into depression, and all kinds of abuses, whether they be substance abuse or self abuse. I have been able to hold them up, like a life perserver. These people have reconized me for what I am and clung to me with all their strength.

This clinging can be stifling. I have had people who had to be with me every free moment I had. I could not be myself. If I wanted time to myself I had to explain that it wasn't their fault, that I just wanted to be alone. This was especially hard for me, as I am by nature a very private person.

When I broke off my relationship with one of these peope I felt very bad for a while, not for me but out of fear of what they would do. Finally I had to return to my drowning man example. There is only so long a man can cling to that life perserver if they refuse to try and swim to shore. Nothing is changed by the situation if they refuse to help themself. Only two things can happen.

They pull me down with them. I can not survive in a relationship like that and will eventually break down, where as neither of us have support and we both drown. Or else their needs become too great for me and I can no longer support them, they go down despite my best efforts. In either of these cases, that person looses. I had to accept that you can't always help everyone. It's impossible. You can do your best but in the end, you can only do your best, no more.