Rescuing/Caring for others

I know the feeling. To a ridiculous degree, actually. My wife and I got together when she was in the middle of an abusive marriage to an alcoholic. I was her confidante and rescuer, funded her escape apartment and managed to find her an inexpensive divorce lawyer. That led to 20 years of rescuing her from difficulties of one kind or another, and I'm still trying to ease out of the marriage in the least painful way possible--but I AM easing out, no question of that!

I was actually very much afraid that I'd end up with a sort of male "damsel in distress" if I ever stepped into the gay dating pool. Fortunately that hasn't happened. My guy is certainly going through some difficult times--his coming out turned into a kind of turbocharged emotional slip-n-slide that took his breath away--but he's far from helpless, and it's a toss-up whether he leans on me or I lean on him on any given day. It's a very equitable relationship and we're very much on equal footing in all respects, so it's definitely not based on my rescuer tendencies--thank God!

 

There's healthy rescuing - helping someone whose car has broken down, if you can deduce that the situation is not a set-up, and ...

there's unhealthy rescuing - taken someone on as a project, either because it offers a sense of control, self validation, or something along those lines.

I have done both, though less of the latter. If someone requires a lot of work, and not worth it, it's better to just walk away. I learned that very well within the last 10 to 15 years. A lot of people have these cyclical tendencies they can't break so it's not as if your rescue effort will improve them ... or you!

 

Could closeted people just be people pleasers?

Seems like good way to reinforce a closet. eg. If I do extra people will like me, if they like me they'll never peek inside my closet.

 

I'm a lot more self-aware than I used to be, because depression skews your perspective, but I found that helping out other people, listening to their problems, being supportive in a crisis, was a ridiculously good way to avoid your own problems.

Nowadays I self - assess a lot more. I have a natural inclination towards humanity and support of fellow humans and wanting to understand what motivates people to become the people they do - so I am about to embark on training to become a qualified counsellor, and I have lined up a placement at the LGBT centre that has thus far supported me with coming out - I feel very strongly that the universe is pointing me in that direction and I'm letting it have it's say.

 

definitely applies to me. I figured that much out (well, since joining EC). I am a definite people pleaser, and I am always hyper sensitive to how people react to me, and think about me. and what I figured out is that it is all part of being in the closet. one part of it is feeling like people would never like me if they knew the real me (which, oh my, is that GAY guy); and the other part is trying to be the person that they would like, because, again, that person in the closet would just never be OK. So, now I am wondering if that part of us changes when we come out. do people who were people pleasers when in the closet change to be something different when they come out?

 

I don't see a link here. Look at how many rescuers and pleasers there are among straight people. And look at how many mean-spirited and calloused hedonists who wouldn't lift a finger for anyone are found among LGBTs, particularly "guppys."

I think that what you might be saying is that, if people perceive someone to be "nice," they will tolerate their possible LGBT status more. Now that would make sense.

I had to listen to something fairly ridiculous within the last month. A neighboring woman I mostly like was telling me about a single middle aged ethnic man who goes to her parish. She described him with his age, his ethnicity, that he's "so nice," and that he's single, adding "I don't know if he's gay or not." I found that very tasteless on her part, among other things she has said in the past, but I also think that his "niceness" is an excuse not to peek in to his suspected closet as much as to accept the fact that he might be gay. If she thought that, she should have kept it to herself. More reasons NOT to go to church.

 

maybe those people pleasing "straight" people are really in the closet. and all those mean spirited LGBTs, well obviously they're not in the closet, because you know they're LGBT. Just wondering....

 

I look at the nurturing and people pleasing more as some of the personality traits that led to the closet in the first place, rather than being related to actually being gay. If you're insecure enough to have a desperate need, even from early childhood, to make everyone happy, I'd think you would be less likely to do ANYTHING that would upset the apple cart. That could mean being a closeted gay person, but it might also take other forms like extreme self-sacrifice or subservience. Within limits, those personality traits are a positive thing. But carry them to some kind of illogical extreme and anything can happen.

 

yeah, I get it. kind of like a predisposition. the personality traits that make me a people pleaser also make it more likely to be someone who would end up in the closet.

 

I empathize with this on an obnoxious (and probably unhealthy) level. I have always desired, no... craved to be the rescuer. My dreams are plagued with life-or-death scenarios, in which I'll end up dying for someone at some point or another. I've done a lot of research on personality theories and such to try to figure myself out, and concluded I probably have some sorts of martyr complex or something, but it's still an odd thing.

 

yeah, like it could even take you to marry someone of the wrong gender. when you can't feel the emotions of love and attraction, the emotion of being the hero and rescuer can be confused as the same thing. just my perspective. :tears:

 

Yep. Story of my marriage, that's for sure....

 

I wasn't immediately identifying with this thread but then I got to thinking about how it my apply to me from a little different angle. I don't think I have that same craving to be the hero or rescuer that some of you are describing. It's not that I don't like to try and help if I realize there is a problem, but it's not this drive to fill that role, and honestly for me it's pretty easy to keep my focus inward instead of outward on others and I'm sure that makes it possible for me to miss on those types of things even if they present themselves sometimes.

But I did get to thinking how I might fit the mold of another type of people pleaser pretty well. I'm not a boat rocker. I tend to avoid conflict if possible. I am naturally a fairly soft spoken and easy going guy, which plays into those things, but there are times on both little and more important things when I don't speak up as much as the situation dictates I should. I don't like telling people things that I think might upset them.

Also I think there is another factor that has influenced my stay in the closet maybe even more. To friends and especially family, I'm not accustomed to giving them reasons to doubt the quality of my character. Now I know that being gay doesn't mean anything with regards to that, but many of the people closest to me are Southern Baptists, and thanks to those beliefs and teachings on homosexuality, I guess I have reason to believe that they might see my coming out as a reason to doubt my own character.

That bothers me. It really bothers me. Trying to tackle and make peace the possibility that others may use my sexuality as a reason to be displeased with the quality of my character has been maybe the toughest thing to grapple with so far for me.

 

Absolutely, YES to this. I'm totally secure with being gay and I don't have any fears in my heart that it somehow makes me a bad person in absolutely any way. And since starting to come out, I've been surprised--shocked, really--at the number of people in my life who either guessed it a long time ago, or never guessed but are quite fine with it. But there's a small group in my life that make me just a little queasy, because I fear that they'll think it makes me a little less of the paragon of a virtuous family man that they always considered me. In my case, a lot of them are people in my small town that I've known forever, and particularly neighbors, and the ones who picked on my constantly as a kid but finally have come around to thinking I'm not was worthless as they assumed I was in 7th grade. There's no rational reason for me to give a crap what any of them think, and most of the time I don't. But it slips back into my brain every now and then and gives me a tiny, momentary chill. I was actually grateful that my gossipy neighbor outed me to half the neighborhood, because it was like having someone else pull off the band-aid unexpectedly for me. But although they all know, they're all tactfully being quiet about it, which is unnerving in its own way. I shouldn't care. But a part of me still wants to live up to the expectations they have of me.

Or, let's be honest--the expectations I PERCEIVE them as having about me. Because there's no guarantee that it matters to them nearly as much as it ever did to me....

 

I think it's human nature, but then again, could it just be my nature? that if there are 100 people in a room and 99 of them love me, I will be focused on and obsessing about the one who does not. maybe that's ego. definitely! but I'm sure that it has been a factor in me being in the closet.

 

Absolutely. I think a lot of us closet cases are far more sensitive to other peoples' opinions of us that other people are. Not saying it's a gay thing, not at all. Plenty of straight people are over-sensitive and insecure and desperate for approval too. But there has to be something more to explain why some of us felt the need to hide in the closet, and others never did. I may have been remarkably clueless about sexuality until college, but my family was pretty gay-neutral all things considered, and I had a dim awareness but no real fears of AIDS or gay-bashing or anything else. Sure, I had some brushes with anti-gay sentiments from people--notably my younger brother--but really, I was generally bullied for being fat and brainy and shy, and never (or rarely) for potentially being gay.

So I impressed everyone with my care and concern, and it really became an integral part of my personality. And I became empathetic to a fault, and go overboard caring for people who appear to me to be needy and vulnerable. In the case of my wife, it got confused with love and made her incredibly attractive to me in a way no one had previously. I'm sure everyone has their own set of factors that lead to the closet, but I just don't buy the notion that it was all societal pressures or fears of AIDS, or else no one would be out. It seems like figuring out the psychological factors that sent us into the closet will make the journey out a lot less painful, particularly for people still struggling to decide what to do about it at all.