I'm not cut out for helping people

[Lovepotion69]

I was talking to my mom the other evening. I had told her my friend J and I were going to meet that girl who had some problems. He's moving, so we wanted to meet her together. She has connected with him VERY fast these last couple of days. They went for a walk and spoken on the phone etc. Something happened during that walk and now she has started to really get attached to him and calls him when she needs someone.

She is getting professional help from a hospital now, but I have a feeling she will begin to turn to him a lot from now on.

I want to be there for her, but my mom (who doesn't know much apart from that she has problems) asked me if I'm the helping kind of person. When she has spoken about her problems before I've showed by body language that I don't feel comfortable with it. How would I be able to listen to this girl?

During the day yesterday I felt strange, like stressed and my heart was beating fast at times. Didn't reflect much on it, just thought I was tired, but looking back I must have been tensed about the meeting.
All three of us had a pretty good time and I could tell there had been a connection established between them. The thing is, I've realised I'm so bloody scared of saying/doing something wrong. And when I hear some serious stuff I think I get too emotionally/mentally involved and that in return affects me. Think that's why I can't deal with listening to my mom's problems. I want to say something to cheer the person up, but at times the problem (if it's damn serious) can kinda...overwhelm me and I just don't know what to say. So I keep shut.

Yesterday I could tell when my friend was saying stuff with an aim behind it and I felt like I didn't dare to interrupt it by saying something. Or if I didn't have the same opinion, I didn't dare saying it with him in the room, as I was worried the girl would get conflicting messages (kinda like the father and mother saying different things to the daughter).

So, when J and I were alone I wasn't in the best mood. Very quiet and thoughtful. I had wanted it to be a good fun time with him before he moved from here, but when he invited her I knew I'd get emotional, and I was right. At the same time we did the right thing, but it hit me that perhaps mom was right. Perhaps I'm not cut out to help people. Maybe it's not within my nature.

J ended up having to comfort me and tell me that I should only get as involved as much as I felt I could, that I shouldn't feel guilty if I needed to stop myself. He told me to let him take care of it. Then the girl called him around 11pm and was very upset, today I found out they had talked and he had felt it was ok, but afterwards it started to get to him too.

Now I'm trying to figure myself out as a person, how involved I want to get with this situation and can't help worrying about both the girl and J. Argh!


/LP

 

[Guest]

sometimes, LP, the best kind of help is just to lend an ear. your defence mechanisms are your protection from being hurt. it doesnt mean you arent the helping sort of person, just that you help in your own unique way.

no worries babe. the people who know and love you, understand probably alot more than you realize.

 

[Teenage Venus]

I can empathise with you. Sometimes you just can't say the right thing, and whatever you say is misconstrued. to apologise only makes things worse.

If they are real friends they will understand. With hindsight, it is better never to express an opinion - just listen.

I really do feel for you. Vella_ms is correct I think.

 

[cantdog]

I can't count the times I have left the room and had to tell myself, "She wanted sympathy, not solutions, you idiot!"

That was years back, I've improved and have a slightly better feel for it.

I want to tell you that you lack only alert experience.

[aside=definition]Just experience is no good, you need to be noticing and you need to introspect or it goes right by, changing nothing. If experience were all it took, the rocks in Canada would be running the planet, dispensing their eons of wisdom[/aside]

The reason most anyone can't do most anything is they close the door themselves. Your mother is wrong. Perhaps today, you don't have enough alert experience to be good at helping in some circumstances. But she can't possibly be correct in intimating that you are not the helping sort of person. Everyone is. When they don't bother, it only means they have a strong dose of psychopath in their makeup, or they are stuck in a childhood state of egocentricity. You don't want to be that kind of person.

I tell you truly, we are all here to help each other. It is the very last thing to tell yourself you can't do. It is also the most important thing to work on, to introspect on. If you don't have solutions, and I do realize that with a lot of heavy shit, you do not!, then you need to ask if you can at least offer love and sympathy.

Sometimes the offer is rejected. People are not always receptive. You could tell me right now to piss off, for instance.

But the helping person is in you. Find it.

 

[Guest]

LP, everyone above is right. Cant makes the most immediate insight - you are young (years-wise) and merely lack experience, but the fact that you are bothered means you want to help others, and so you will, as time goes by. You're also smart cos you're holding back and not wanting to do the 'wrong' thing.

I think I was like you when young, it took a long time for me to have the courage to reach out to help anyone, but when I did it was the best experience, and only got better. I don't even feel I'm good, I feel selfish helping others cos it makes me feel good too. Weird.

You're a good girl, LP; I'd be proud to have you as a daughter, or friend.

Perdita

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

LP, you shouldn't be worried about whether or not you are cut out to help people. The fact that you wanted to be there and help is enough to say that you are. Most people aren't automatically good at that sort of thing. It comes from experience and doing.

Give it time and you will become mor comfortable with it.

 

[cantdog]

I love you when you're like this, Perdita.

I admire it in you.


cantdog

 

[CharleyH]

LP, the mere fact that you posted a while ago about your concern for this person is indicative of your compassion, and I think that the views here say it all.

However, I do just need to remind both you and your friend of what I mentioned in my PM. Neither of you are equipped to deal with the often overwhelming nature of this person's problems. Already, as you mention, you are both feeling stress.

Having dealt, for five years with a situation and person similar as you described to me, I can only reiterate that you both need to be careful of enabling this person. Leave the hard stuff to the professionals. This is very important and I can't stress it enough. If you want to be a friend, be a friend, help take her mind away, if only briefly from the multitude of problems, but don't help her deal with them. Helping her as pseudo-psychologists could do her more harm than you know, and this would be in opposition to what you are trying to do.

Sometimes the greatest compassion and love consists of backing away.

I also need to mention that you and your friend are teachers, are this girls teacher, and the fact that she is calling him at 11pm puts him in a career compromising position, and I can already imagine the response to getting her to call at a more appropriate time.

Anyhow, I could go on, but I know this is not what you want at this time. I just felt the need to say part of it again because of concern for you.

 

[Lovepotion69]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate your posts. Just finished a looooooong email to three of my closest friends, explaining the whole situation, my thoughts, feelings etc etc.

First of all, we're not teachers. We were just substitute ones. J is moving town to start his own company and I'm currently working somewhere else. I might be back at the school if I don't find something else in fall, but the girl won't be there. She'll most likely be in the hospital where she's now. Getting involved now is all a private thing.

This girl, I want to be there for her, but she has obviously chosen J now and a part of me is honestly relieved. He's better cut out for this, but at the same time I get worried for his sake. I'm not sure if he has considered all the aspects getting involved will be.
He seemed so...casual yet serious the first time we spoke about trying to be there for her. He doesn't overanalyze things, he has learnt to stop himself from that over the past years. Still, at times I'm worried he might miss something in his calculation. I want him to realize that he can't just go into this without realizing that from now on everything he tells her will make a huge impact on her, and even if he's not afraid (like me) to say something wrong and mess something up, I did tell him to consider that now there are the hospital people involved too.

He has to take that into his calculations too, it's not just him and her. The game consists of her, him, me, her parents, social services and the doctors. Certain things will affect each other and certain things need to be taken into consideration too while dealing with her. Inside of me I am quite sure he does think of these things, but I feel a need to remind him. Just to be on the safe side.
I've even warned him that if she will get this attached to him in two days, then he should keep in mind what he'll mean to her if he goes the whole way. She's gonna fall for him. Big time. She's vulnerable, has bad experiences with men and well, being a girl I know it's damn easy to fall for the knight in shining armour. He's coming into her life when she's the most vulnerable and he's being there for her. She'll fall in love with him, and a 15y/o girl who's in love...it'll be intense. The situation will make it ten times more intense.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Love, you did the most important thing, you reached out and gave a hand to someone, you opened your heart, not many people would do that.
That was an important start.

~A~

 

[Lovepotion69]

Feeling better now

I called her today and talked a bit to her. The parents has placed her with the dad's friend in the middle of nowhere. She says she only sees forrest and she's there the rest of the summer to take care of the guy's kids (three). Basically being the nanny and housekeeper. She's not allowed to use the phone, most likely cos they don't want anyone to trace her. She's supposed to keep in touch with her hospital minders, but she doesn't have credits on her phone and the minders never asked for her cellphone #. Idiots. So, she has no clue how they'd get hold of her as her parents most likely won't tell them where she is.

She's worried this friend of her father might rape her. She asked both J and me for advice what she should do if he tries to do it. We couldn't do much than tell her to fight back as much as possible etc.

I called a helpline and spoke to a professional and he agreed with a lot of my concerns, also gave me nice feedback etc. He also gave me some ideas etc that I conveyed to J.

What did make me feel better today though was that I had come up with practical ideas. When speaking to her about not being able to use the landline, I told her to try and give either J or me a call, but hang up after 1-2 signals. That way it wouldn't be registered on the bill, but hopefully we'd be able to see the phone number. That way we can trace down where she is.
I also told told J we can buy her credits for her phone. Just buy the credits and tell her the code so she can top it up. That way she'll be able to call us and her minders.
The helpline guy said it'd be good if we can get her to agree to let us talk to her minders. That way she can still confide in us, but we can relay the information to the minders so they and the hospital knows the situation and how she is doing. As J is the one talking most to her he's gonna get on it. I think he'll be able to get her to give us the minder's numbers.

I did warn J that if he calls very often and really late, perhaps the man will wonder why she gets those calls. So I guess we'll have to be careful about that too.

We're also slowly starting to build up to get the ball rolling when it comes to social services etc. We can't do much now as we don't know where she is, but she's supposed to be back home for when school starts. She assumes she'll go back to school, doesn't know if the hospital will want her back as they gave her the whole summer off (which is just soo....ARGH! I get so mad at them). We'll have to be there for her over the summer and then start something up when she gets back home probably.

In all honesty I'm amazed how rational I felt while conducting research and coming up with solutions to small practical problems. Perhaps the helpline guy was right, J and I play different roles in this. She gets different support from us and he's there to concentrate on comforting her, while I think of all the practical aspects.
My mom would be amazed how organised I am. I never am otherwise! Seems like I'm much better at being organised, practical and thinking about all the "what if's" when it comes to other people, but am a total wacko when it comes to myself...

/LP