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sarahsweets · Mar 08, 2019, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ennie

Say an overly-dependent person comes and asks for your help. And you feel that it's not your job to do things for her, so you make a suggestion, "Why don't you try xyz?" Your aim is to help her help herself and stop asking you. But each and every time you make a suggestion, she tells you why it wouldn't work and how her situation is infinitely hopeless. And this back and forth will persist until you give in and offer to do things for her.

At what point do you say, "Hey I'm maxed out on my suggestions. You are on your own"?

Next time, should I just say from the beginning, "No, I can't help you, sorry" rather than suggesting her to help herself and get myself trapped into this kind of conversation? Or if that's too cold or harsh, should I limit it to just one suggestion and say, "Well I tried to help you but I can't think of anything else"?

I had to do this with my daughter (not sure if you know my story). In a nutshell.. she turned 18 3/2018 ran away, shacked up at a party house, showed up at home three months later with a drug and alcohol problem and we immediately took her to hospital for inpatient treatment, then rehab, rehab housing, sober house 1 and now sober house 2. When she left we had the car towed away from where she was staying within 4 days and within 5 we shut her phone off and changed the code on the security locks at home. We did reach out but had to stop after a couple of weeks due to the fact that we had no power. From then on she was on her own.
She had it in her head that she would live with us after rehab but we said no. She had to get her own phone plan and has to pay her own rent. We started letting her borrow the car she used to drive but if her dad can't fix what is wrong with it when there is a problem then it is her job to pay for it.

This was the hardest stuff to go through in my life, I wanted to rescue her, I was afraid of taking the phone away (duh) but the years of AA taught me that I can't expect change if I enable the behavior I want changed.

I had to learn how to set boundaries and stick by them. Many times when you are hurt boundaries are laid down and a tiny bit easier to keep because you are so afraid of being hurt again but many people have an issue laying them down out of fear they will lose or hurt the person they care about.

The way we did this was the only way we thought we could teach her that her treatment of us was unacceptable and not going to keep happening.
Even now if she asks for advice but has an excuse for why each thing I say won't work I tell her that I wont listen to it anymore because she is not interested in my help.
This whole thing has been very difficult for me.