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                    %DETACHING FROM OTHERS' PROBLEM 870601

     Often  our  problem  is that we attach  ourselves  to
problems  which  belong to other people;  we try  to  take
their problems away from them, perhaps out of a charitable
sense of duty or responsibility to lighten their burden.

     There are times when it is possible to be helpful  to
other people by offering assistance.  There are times when
people must do for themselves what no other  person can do
for  them.   In the latter instances attempting to do  for
them  what  they  must do for themselves  harms  both  the
person "helped" and the "helper".  It is important to know
the difference between the various kinds of instances, and
to respect people's need to own their own problems and  to
deal honestly with their own problems themselves.  It does
not  help a person to have their own problems stolen  from
them.

     Paternalistic  people need to learn that they do  not
help  others by attaching themselves to others'  problems.
Paternalistic  people need to learn to  detach  themselves
from the problems which they have stolen;  problems  which
do  not really belong to them.   People who have  problems
stolen from them are both pleased and resentful; doomed to
have  ambivalent  feelings toward the  thief.    They  are
tempted  to  manipulate  the thief to cause the  thief  to
steal  more  problems,   and at the same time to hate  the
thief for stealing their dignity.  They do not know how to
escape the  trap created by the paternalistic thief who is
locked  with  them  in an addictive  relationship  of  co-
dependence.

     The  paternalistic thief feels driven by a  sense  of
responsibility to lift others' burdens, and by a deep need
to  be  needed by people who are  co-dependent  with  them
because of their addiction to the help which is offered in
relieving  them of the responsibility to deal  with  their
own   problems.    Each  is  the  victim  of  their  joint
relationship;   resenting  each other while trapped  in  a
needful  relationship  without any genuine satisfaction of
felt  needs.    As it progresses the relationship  becomes
more and more need-full, and less and less satisfying.

     The   participants  in  an   addictive   co-dependent
relationship  need to detach themselves from the  problems
which genuinely belong  to  others,   and to assume honest
responsibility for their own problems and actions.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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