Do you ever wonder if what you are doing is worth what it is costing you? You know, you sit there eating your third cookie, planning to get some coffee or milk and eat a few more. The last thing you need is more carbs, a sugar spike, and then the milk. An internet influencer pointed out that the true purpose of milk is to help a cow gain several hundred pounds within a year, yet here you are (or maybe it�s here I am, for a small confession). Engaging in a once-a-quarter decision to binge eat cookies and drink milk may not be such a big deal, but how many other simple choices we make each day, several times a day, end up costing us far more than we ever intended?
You know what I mean, you say yes when you know you should say no. You stick around a little longer, and before you know it, you�ve stuck around far too long. You think about what you want and put aside what you know you need. You find yourself doing what you want to instead of what you need to do, and then you look back. You wonder how you got here. You wonder why you didn�t stop sooner or turn around. You wonder how you managed to get yourself trapped in a toxic relationship. The cost is much greater than you ever could have imagined. You convince yourself that you are doing something to help someone else, someone you love, but are you really? There is a selfishness to not being able to say �no.� That selfishness hides itself behind the belief that you are helping. The selfishness hides behind the thought or belief that you are a hero and that you are making someone else�s life better.
You carry a thought such as, �I can�t stand to see them hurt.� �I feel everything they are feeling, and I can�t stand it.� �I just have to help.� �I hate to see him/her suffer like that.� �I just want to help.� The list of excuses is endless. You know that you truly care about the people around you, strangers, and even every small animal you pass. You believe in being nice and helpful. You may even feel compelled to do something to ease the suffering. You can�t imagine that helping could actually be hurting. You can�t imagine that your efforts might be rooted in selfishness. That idea is ludicrous. You know, you want to do the right thing. Still, there is a cost, and the question is, �Is it worth what it costs?�
When you decide to give up what you need to give someone else what they want, the cost to both of you can be incredible, not in a good way. You become exhausted and feel hopeless. You find yourself filled with worry and regret. The one you love cannot, or refuses to, behave responsibly and finds him/herself in trouble. You keep waiting for the phone to ring with bad news. Was the decision to rescue, fix, control, or take care of your loved one worth what it has cost everyone around you? You�re thinking maybe it isn�t. You�re wondering what other options you have. Everyone around you has gotten used to you handling all of the responsibilities, and you wonder what they would think if you were to stop. You wonder what would happen if you were to start counting the cost and making decisions based on need rather than want. You wonder what it would be like to sleep well at night. You wonder what peace and hope feel like. Imagine if your thoughts were quieted and that racing angst of �what if�� were to be shut up, and your thoughts fell silent, or better yet, became hopeful. Who could you be, if you made those changes?
You have always heard that you should turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, be the good Samaritan, and help. You want to be a good person, and you want to help. Still, something isn�t quite right, and you don�t know what it is. You just know that what you are doing is not working, and you can�t keep going the way you are. Still, you don�t want to upset the people around you, especially the people you love. You want to do the right thing. You definitely don�t want to hurt anyone, yet here you are, hurting, spinning your wheels, watching the people you love get worse and worse. Somehow, you think you might be adding to the problem rather than helping. That�s where my assertion of selfishness begins. Many of us, not just you, far too often, me too. We can�t stand how we feel when we experience other people�s emotions. We weren�t made to hold on to other people�s emotions, make decisions for them, or control them, or take responsibility for them.
The same chapter in the Bible that tells us to carry one another�s burdens also says for each one to bear his own load (Galatians 6). Unfortunately, there are those of us who believe carrying one another�s burdens means picking up the entire load. Would that be you? There is a difference between carrying the burdens of your loved ones and carrying their load. Helping someone who is working hard to succeed gives them the help they need and makes you feel good. Taking responsibility for someone who is taking advantage of your generosity and refusing to do what is necessary to succeed is the problem. The result is your depression, your anxiety, your frustration, your hopelessness, your exhaustion, and your constant worry. The consequences to the one you love are addiction, hopelessness, lack of purpose, and the list goes on and on.
Sometimes, the most healthy thing you can do for someone you love is tell them �no.� Unfortunately, that means that you have to stay uncomfortable, too. It�s easy to step in and do something to solve the problem and make yourself feel better (the selfishness). However, you deprive the person you love of the opportunity to grow, develop self-confidence, and develop independence, and you create a thunderstorm for them. They become dependent and irresponsible. Moms oftentimes are the worst. You don�t want anything bad to happen to your baby, so you protect him from himself until he starts to self-destruct. You protect her from her mistakes, then she chooses someone who is controlling and abusive. Mom, you are not alone, though. There are plenty of relationships where this unhealthy, mental health crisis-inducing behavior is displayed. The issue is not limited to personal relationships either. This unhealthy behavior bleeds into work and other social relationships.
The answer, just say �no,� is not nearly as simple, though, as it sounds. Most of the time, it will send you into an emotional tailspin of fear and worry. Telling someone you love �no� is terrifying, and depending upon the severity of the problem, it could be life-threatening for the person you love. Conversely, continuing to take on the responsibility of the person you love can also be just as life-threatening. Making the changes you need to make can and will shake up many people in your world. They won�t know what to do with themselves, after all, you always take care of the problems, and they don�t know how. When you continue solving their problems for them, they never realize the severity of the problem and keep digging their holes deeper and deeper, unfortunately, and far too often causing the loss of a life, if not lives, including their own.
The prognosis does not have to be so bleak. The sooner you make the changes you need to make, the better for those around you. Saying �no� and allowing the one you love to struggle and learn to succeed before the problem becomes so severe that life or death is the issue is imperative. You can learn to manage helping without hurting. You can learn when to tell someone �no� and when to dive in and �work your fingers to the bones,� as my mother would say, helping people you love.
Will it upset some people? Absolutely. The people who are using you and taking advantage of you will become incredibly angry with you. They may even terminate their relationship with you. When you show up in therapy to talk about it, you will be asked specifically how the changes will affect your relationship with your spouse. The reason for the question is to work preemptively, to plan, and protect important relationships. No one wants to end up getting a divorce or walking away from family with no contact. Still, you are at the end of your rope and desperate. You are exhausted and sometimes think you would be better off dead or worse.
You were not made to give up everything you need to give people around you what they want. You were made for a relationship with Jesus, and through that relationship, you can give to other people. Learning to go to God and get your needs met and then pour yourself out in service to others has an amazing effect on your emotions. Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress become problems of the past when you make the changes you need and start to live again. You can have hope and healing. You can find rest and sleep better at night.
Your insurance company insists that you get a diagnosis for mental health to prove that treatment is medically necessary. When your therapist documents your session, she includes the symptoms you have worked on in the session. When those two items are not present, insurance doesn�t pay. Those of us who work in the field do recognize major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, adjustment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and so many more terms for describing the things that are happening to you. Your prescriber will give you medication that can help. That medication always comes with side effects. Most of us don�t like the side effects. So we ask the question, is this medication worth what it costs? We ask the question, Is what I am doing now worth what it costs? The bigger question, in my opinion, �is healing worth what it costs?�
Mental health providers help you identify triggers, warning signs, and symptoms and develop a plan for coping with your symptoms. That takes a lot of work on your part. Accelerated Resolution Therapy enables you to challenge your thoughts, reframe them, identify unwanted symptoms, release most of those symptoms, and learn to live life from a whole new perspective. Those changes can be costly, but more often than not, the reward outweighs the cost immeasurably.
More often than not, the result of addressing your difficulties with Accelerated Resolution Therapy is peace. You can experience peace, freedom, hope, relief, calm, and confidence. You can have healthy relationships where you encourage one another and make the ones you love better while they make you better.
Healing is costly; you may think something like �Who would I be if I got better?� The question I recommend you ask instead is �Who could I be if I got better? You can become the person you dream of being. You can be the one who makes the world around you better. You can live your life the way you were truly meant to live it. Healing will cost you those sleepless nights; you will sleep again. Healing will cost you that depressed, hopeless feeling; you will feel encouraged and hopeful. Healing will cost you that anxiety; you will relax in the freedom of knowing that you are not responsible for everyone in the world and focus on the things that are more important to you. I am Vickie, a therapist in Maryville, TN, and I help people from Knoxville and the surrounding communities find a counselor, heal from their trauma, and adverse life experiences. I can help you. Click the link at the top of the page, and schedule a time so we can talk.
