I said, “I don’t want to hurt this person, I’ve spend a lot of time trying to deflect their pain”.

“But aren’t you hurting yourself in the process”, he asked.

I said, “In way, yes.  But…”

His response, “But what?  Isn’t that how it was as a child?  You put others before you, you weren’t important.  You were made to be responsible for other peoples emotional well being and that’s never the job of a child.”

“Oh” I thought aloud.  Back to that.  It always goes back to the origin doesn’t it.

If I take care of them, they will at some point take care of me.  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?  No.  That’s how we think it’s supposed to work but it never comes out that way. Not for me anyway.  Maybe someone, somewhere (besides Hollywood movies) it’s worked like that.  Never for me, yet I keep trying to complete that cycle and I lose myself in the process over and over again.

The source of that thinking, if I can protect the others, take their beatings for them, take the blame, take the spotlight and make it all my fault, I can control it and, somehow make it better.

No one comes out and asks me to do this, it’s one of those wordless agreements that we all make.  It’s an entire script, in my head, set on auto pilot.

My therapist suggested (about a year ago) that I needed to have a conversation about that wordless agreement, to tell the other person that I could no longer hold that position.  I was losing myself in the process and it wasn’t their fault, but I needed to resign from that job.

Sometimes, I think other people don’t mind that we lose ourselves as long as we serve as a prop for them.  (Again, auto pilot behavior.)

Once you’ve established that type of “agreement” it’s hard to move away from it.  It takes time, more conversations, discipline.  I have discipline to change my behavior, or I’m pretty sure I do.  It can be done even if it is like trying to turn a commercial ocean liner.

Funny how it is that I forget this small detail, that I push myself to the side in order to make things better for another person.  Not because I’m a martyr, I have ulterior motives (see above “If I take care of them…”).

All this collected crap manifests itself in many ways.  Much like plant roots, seeking the water and nutrients it needs to survive all the while hidden underneath the ground never seen by the casual observer.

Until something starts to wilt or die, then the journey begins again to find the source.  In order to make it right.