Support Vs Being "fixed"

[Justmehere]

I'm struggling to find words right now, but I want to keep trying to put things into words, keep pulling through the tough season I have been in for the past couple of months.

I have this really strong desire to try and find people in my life who will support me, but not fix me. When others try to fix me right now, it makes me so anxious, and it fuels this weird unhealthy drive in me to fix myself, at all costs. No matter what.

I think this is part of what led to my breakdown with my old trauma therapist. I just didn't want to be fixed anymore, and she was beginning to anxiously try and fix me. Or maybe it was just me that was anxiously fixing me.

I want to believe it's ok to be broken, to be just as I am. I am quite fiesty about this right now.

The last few months have been really crappy for me and I think this has been a really big underlying issue I keep coming undone over.

I think it all started in March. I remember this one particular day where I suddenly hit a wall. I fell apart in every way. I was overwhlemed with grief... and I didn't want to fix or change it. My old trauma therapist called for our regularly scheduled phone session (we would do one session a week in person and one session via the phone.)

I remember breaking down in tears and saying, I don't want to fix me anymore.

It was a good moment, and she talked with me as I felt the grief of childhood an adulthood trauma hit. A lot of grief that I have been running from for a long time.

Things have been really difficult since then. I did a PTSD intensive treatment program in April (that I had applied to do in Feburary) and then in May, the first appointment back, things very suddenly fell apart with my trauma therapist - according to her it was sudden, and she quit and then my doctor lost his license to practice medicine, every new therapist I saw didn't work out, sometimes in really horrible ways, and then my mother went ran over my now weak boundaries with her and came to visit and it was nothing but awful, work and school have been a mess with all this trauma now opened up from the intensive treatment program and then no therapeutic support to process through the trauma I opened up while in the intensive, and now a weird physical fear of therapy even though I intellectually think therapy is a good idea...

My friends noticed me coming undone through May, and a couple of them started to overwhelm me with suggestions and "help" - it was all well meaning but I got angry back. I told one friend, "Stop trying to fix me. Stop. Let me just be anxious right now. Let me just be sad. stop. You can't fix me. You can't. Stop!"

I screamed that last "stop" at her... all she said was that I "should" call a specific place to see if they could help me do grief counseling for a friend who recently passed away. It was actually a very good suggestion given with very good intentions. I totally lost my sh*t over it.

I still want to scream at the world, "stop fixing me."

I have always been a problem to solve. Always.

I don't want to fix me anymore. I want to keep pursuing recovery from PTSD and healing from the trauma, but not this "fixing" of me...

Somehow, this seems very important. Of all the people trying to change me right now, I am the most driven to CHANGE me, at all costs. Any and all costs.

It is a message from my abusers, an old tape, that I am nothing but a probelm, and that I am never ok to just be the way I am. Along the way, I have strongly internalized the message "I have to be fixed or I can not be."

I take responsibility not for the trauma, but for the fact that I have believed a lie. I have believed that I must be fixed at all costs and I have driven myself a little crazy, and now I'm driving everyone else away as I defend this very insecure place in me. Don't fix me. Don't be near me because I fear you will fix me like my abusers as a child tried to do. Hurt me and then try to fix me, only to hurt me even more.

I don't want to be fixed anymore. I desperately don't want to be fixed anymore. Somehow, this seems really important for me to move forward in life in a healthier direction. I finally don't want to be fixed. I want to be me. I want to keep healing from the trauma, but not be fixed. I want to believe this so much that if anyone suggests I should do anything, it's not a bog deal. I already know I don't need to be fixed, and I want to know this so deeply that I don't feel this drive to convince everyone else to stop fixing me too.

I want to get better. I want support. I want help. I want... all of that. But not to be fixed.

I think I am fixated on this a bit. ha! Maybe that's ok. Maybe I'm ok just as I am.

If only I could figure out how to explain to others in my life what it means to support me, without trying to fix me... Any thoughts? I probably don't make very much sense right now. Thanks for letting me post this anyhow.

 

[Tanishq]

Justmehere, I hear you.

I do believe you really don't need to be fixed to live your life. Sadly people don't get this. They are awfully trapped in this kind of thinking. I am glad you don't think like them.

I am sorry to hear you are going through very difficult time.

I want to tell you hang in there, you will find a way because you have right belief right now.

Gentle hug to you. :hug:

 

[DogwoodTree]

I don't want to be fixed anymore. I desperately don't want to be fixed anymore. Somehow, this seems really important for me to move forward in life in a healthier direction. I finally don't want to be fixed. I want to be me. I want to keep healing from the trauma, but not be fixed.

I think you said this very well...and here:

I want to believe it's ok to be broken, to be just as I am.

Makes perfect sense to me. I don't know your story, but I was the oldest of several kids with my parents engaged in a nasty divorce and then both of them remarrying very dysfunctional, neurotic individuals. I'm 41 and grown now, married with 4 kids. But I had always tried to live up to that "perfect" mold of being the strong one, being able to handle everyone else's issues, and never allowed to have any issues or needs of my own. Almost 2 years ago now, I broke down and couldn't do it anymore. I just wanted to be a mess for a while.

In my case, my mom, aside from her normal work, works as a lay minister doing counseling and stuff. She's very passionate about it, and somewhat well known in her circles for it. Then things started to fall apart with us because she couldn't handle me not fitting into her box for me anymore. It's been really rough. She still guilt-trips both my husband and me when we're around her, especially if there's no one else around. It really bothers her that I won't go to her to be fixed, because of course she feels she can do a better job than any other counseling ministry in our area. As a result, I won't even talk to her about what's going on with me anymore. I just don't trust her to keep healthy boundaries.

All I can say, defend your right to be wrong. Defend your right to be broken. Defend your right to have problems. If they feel it reflects poorly on them, that's their problem, not yours. They can't fix you, and it will only make it worse if they try.

I don't have enough posts yet to include links, but do a search on YouTube for emotional sponge vs. empathy. There's a video by a Carolyn Zaikowski that is really, really good on this issue. Also, google search for an article on "holding space" on Heather Plett's website. Both of these resources have helped me start to see the difference between support and "fixing".

 

[barefoot]

I hear you.

My therapist's approach is that she holds her clients to be naturally resourceful, creative and whole. I think it may be aBuddhist philosophy? In a nutshell: her clients aren't 'broken' and it's not her job to just swoop in and 'fix' them.

Obviously, she's the 'expert' and I'm seeing her for help, support, guidance, empathy etc so that her knowledge and experience help me to heal. But I like this idea of therapy not being 'done to me' - it feels like we're very much working collaboatively and that ultimately I'll be responsible for my own journey.

I think this is similar to what you're frustrated about with other people? I can't bear fixers!

 

[Skylynx]

My adult part of myself does want to be fixed, but the little child part of me that has the illness and the transference dependency on my T doesn't ever want to be fixed. Being fixed means never seeing T again and that's just unthinkable at this time. I guess the best way to deal with this is to hope that therapy eventually changes me so that being fixed doesn't mean annihilation for the inner child.