Enabling

A couple of questions:

Do any of you visit other mental health sites? How do they compare to this one?

What are the differences between support and enabling?

Are there any ways we could make this site, or parts of this site, more recovery orientated?

Take care,
Fuzzy

Hi Fuzz! //38

I go to another site for spouses/significant others of people who are depressed. This site is more "high tech", and well, the people have entirely different perspectives. I visit each of these sites for opposite purposes. The other site is good for me to vent my frustration, because I really don't want to make anyone here feel bad about how their condition affects their families. I originally came to this site because I wanted to understand what my boyfriend is going through, because he isn't great at expressing his feelings and I was seriously worried and freaking out about him. However, I don't really go to the other site anymore, because it ended up being a little draining. New members constantly flooding in; frustrated, stressed, and worried about their depressed partners. It was always the same story, it always put me in pain to read about how much pain they were in (especially since I can relate so well to it) but I could never really help because most of my attempts at helping my boyfriend and myself have failed. It was kind of dragging me down.

Support and enabling: that is one of the main topics at the other board. That is a tough one... what the people inside the situation consider supportive, people external consider it enabling. Examples of how I've been told I have enabled my bf include:
- making his doctor's appointments
- checking to make sure he has taken his meds
- making excuses for the things he drops responsibility for
- filing his insurance claims
- letting him off the hook for being cranky to me, even hurting my feelings, because I know that he's only being that way because he's depressed
- doing his taxes out of fear that he wouldn't do them himself
- reminding him of his family's and friends' birthdays or to return their calls, or worse, getting cards for them and doing everything but signing his name
- making sure he has eaten,
etc. etc. etc.

I don't do most of those things anymore, but believe me, it's hard to hold myself back. Especially about things that could come back to bite me in the butt: like if he doesn't file his insurance claims, then I won't get reimbursed for the money I've paid for his medical expenses. If he doesn't take his meds, then he'll slip back into severe depression which is very stressful for me. If he doesn't pay his taxes and we get married at some point, his tax penalties and interest will hurt me and god forbid I get audited, being self-employed.

It's such a fine line. People who enable are usually trying to help. I'm also finding, at least about myself, that if I DON'T do the things I mentioned above, my anxiety level goes up, and doing those things calms me down. But the flip side is that doing them also generates resentment from both sides: he resents me because doing those things for him implies that I don't think he is capable of doing them himself, and I resent him because frankly I do not want a relationship with someone I have to take care of. But the thing is, I don't have a relationship with someone I have to take care of unless I take it upon myself to take care of him. So I have learned, especially this summer, that I need to back off because my efforts to help do more harm than good.

I think support is:
- being a good listener
- not judging
- not pushing the other person too hard to or getting the ball rolling for them to do something they aren't ready for
- keep the relationship at an age-appropriate level (don't treat your teenager as a 6-year old, and don't let your husband act like a 16-year old)
- but don't pick up the slack for them
- and maintain your own sense of self-respect

This is just my 2 cents from a non-depressed perspective. You asked some good questions here, Fuzzy - I'm interested to see what everyone else has to say!

Your friend,
LMo

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

Hi Fuzzy,

I've looked around at other mental health sites. There are some with a lot of really good information that I have found very helpful, and I found this one from a link from one of them. The thing that they don't tend to have is the interaction and response and friendship and sense of belonging that we get here. Recently I joined another site that has message boards similar to this one, and it has some features that I like such as that although you have to be a member to post, you can post anonymously if you choose. (That isn't always an advantage, but was for me because I wanted to talk about something but was too embarassed to talk about it with anyone I knew). I also like that they have someone (apparently a licensed counselor) in charge of each of the message board topics. I guess they can do that since it is a site that offers e-therapy (paid), so it is a site that is for making money, not a free service like this one. And I generally like this one much better. Besides having better features here, I don't think anyone looks at the message boards there very often - it doesn't look like there are many responses to anything, and the posts go back 3 years or more without requiring additional pages.

The difference between support and enabling can be a fine line, but support is actually helping someone to deal with their problems, while enabling is keeping the problems going, such as making drugs available to a drug addict or providing the means and excuses to someone so that they don't have to actually face their problems.

More recovery oriented? I feel like we are given the freedom with this site to support each other and that it is what we make of it. We can just come here and complain about our problems and not do anything about it - some have done that - but they do get told what they need to do to start working on it instead of just complaining. Maybe some rules or guidelines for how to ask for help and how the rest of us could best answer those requests could be useful, but I think that most people here do just fine and anyone who lacks those skills learns.

Just a few of my opinions, for what it's worth.


<font color=purple>"The real problem of mental life is not why some people become insane, but rather why most avoid insanity." -Erich Fromm</font color=purple>

I used to use Walkers in Darkness, a depression support site at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.walkers.org>http://www.walkers.org</A>. It was very good, similar to this site. When I used it, it was 100% mailing list oriented. My work email was flooded with messages. I think they still do mailing lists, but also have forums and chats like here.

I just glanced at their home page. They have an assortment of links to mental health related sites. It might be worth checking out.

I also used the Kaiser Permanente support group for a few weeks. It has good people on it, but the application they use to run the site is ghastly. This site is 1000% better.

Wherever you go, there you are

Hey Fuzzy :O)
I have never been to any site before this and I can't see trying to find anything else. Good people here.

I think I agree alot with Lmo on the difference between support and enabling. It's really a fine line and it's very different for each person. The tough part is figuring it all out.

I think for alot of us this site gives us the extra boost we need. I know for me just knowing there is someone out there to talk to helps. I am only (and I use only lightly) suffering from depression which I can usually keep in check. There are many others who need one on one help.

I guess from my view this is a great site for what it can and does offer me. But that's just me.

I feel like I am not making sense so I'm gonna shut it now.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John Ruskin

Hey Fuzzy Great questions

After shopping around I tried this one... Didn't know if I'd stay, but the welcome I recieved and the sincerity I felt from others kept me here. So you are all stuck with me

Support is helping someone. Enabling is agreeing with them always.

Honesty.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius

Well, I certainly never ALWAYS agreed with my boyfriend, so I wouldn't say that's accurate. I disagreed with his approach to handling his depression and made it very clear. But I still allow(ed) him to keep doing it because I compensate(d) for him.

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

My input was not directed at you or anyone else individually... hope I didn't offend

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius

No! Of course not! I was just offering my point of view.

(it takes a lot of offend ole LMo, by the way)

Cheers!
LMo

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

I'll just be shutting up then

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius

Well FuzzBuzz
i have been to many really needing help sites before and this is the best one ive found ever out my whole computer expeiriences

I have been to quite a few sites. This is the only one that I always come back too. I like how it is set up for one but mostly I like the people here. It is a nice mix of people with different difficulties helping one another. Some of the other sites were oriented only toward one illness. I liked BPD sanctuary for a short while but grew resentful about the fact that all our posts were screened before they went on the boards. Other boards I went too it was all sniping and griping and I couldn't figure out why everyone was so mad at each other. I mean geez, one person would disagree with another and all hell would break loose. Here we agree to disagree, are curtious of each other and if things get to the snippy stage we can take it to the pm and work out our differences there instead of on the boards. I like that.

There was one board I went to for a little while which was progress oriented. I thought "Oh cool, this is a positive thing" but after a couple of days I found it to be cold and mean spirited. No one was allowed to ever whine about about anything. If someone just needed to whine a little bit they would tell her that she was choosing to be a victim and that she should just knock it off. I like it here because we can whine once in awhile and when we do we get a hug and some positive ideas on how to feel better. That is true support.

Another one I went to was like a pissing contest. Who was the sickest and how much sicker can I be to get the most attention or the most approval. That wasn't supportive at all and most definately enabling.
Carrie

<font color=green>Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.--Emily Dickenson

Fuzzy,
I am compelled by your post and the difference between enabling and supporting. I have been searching the net tonite to find some data but haven't come up with anything.

I hope that this post will get some more input. I think it is very interesting.
Heidu

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John Ruskin

I really appreciated your response and insight into enabling vs. supporting. I guess it is an opening for me, too. I am trying to understand some things about my son. I see him struggling on day to day things that most people can do. I feel guilty when I see him struggling, because I think I should have done something sooner. When I apologize for being such a busy and oftentimes angry single mom he gets the subtle message that I am trying to avoid saying, that something just isn't quite right with him. It is a terrible cycle of guilt and shame. I go back and forth with just trying to be supportive and accepting him just where he is and staying in denial that something might actually be "wrong" with him. Do I enable him by ignoring those sick red flags in the pit of my stomach, or is that sick feeling grief and then I move into the acceptance and support stages? I am confused. But....this is the first time that I have actually explored these issues re: Nate.

Hi again Angeleyes:
Your situation sounds stressful - that's a lot to handle for any parent, let alone being a single mom. Hopefully you'll gain some understanding of yourself and your son here. It's been really helpful for me in my situation (my boyfriend is depressed and struggles with day-to-day stuff). Welcome.

How old is your son? What are some examples of how your son is struggling? Is he your only child?

I think you're answering your own question about the sick red flags in the pit of your stomach -- I think that as a parent, if you can feel red flags in your stomach, then you probably do have some valid reasons to be concerned. But ignoring red flags is not necessarily the same as enabling -- but give us some examples and maybe we can figure some stuff out together, ok?

You are obviously a devoted and caring parent, even it's hard for you to face that he might have problems. It's coming across to me very clear from your short 1-paragraph post. Don't be too hard on yourself - we'll figure it out. Maybe not completely, but hopefully a few things that can make it easier, ok?

Your friend,
LMo

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

I can not answer the question about Enabling, because I hve no clue waht it means even after reading all the things oterhs have put down..
But I have used other sites and this is my fav, and I have been looking for years..
This site is so "user freindly and it is so much easier to navaiget and ect...

<font color=purple>The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
- G.K. Chesterton
<font color=purple>

Hello again, LMo. I took your advice and wrote a "summary" about the situation with my son. It is a rather lengthy "summary" but I tried to give enough info to relate what he has been through, at least to some degree, and to relate where my confusion comes from. I posted it under "summary". Sometimes I think that he has been a depressed boy for a very long time. Other times I think he might be demonstrating PTSD or some other form of an anxiety related disorder. I have even wondered about some form of schiz. although I do not know enough about that really. Just that he has this terrible distain and distrust for the government. It is deep and dark and out of the ordinary. He reads book after book on conspiracies, etc. Sometimes I think that I must have been like a "Mommy Dearest" from his perspective and he has just had to internalize so much. Sometimes I worry that he has taken serious drugs like LSD or something that has just fried him. Then, sometimes I think that he is a brilliant boy that just has a difficult time focusing on mundane matters. I try very hard not to imply that "something is wrong" with him. See the vicious cycle. Okay, maybe something IS wrong with him. I don't know. All I know is that people perceive him as having slight mental problems because he has a hard time "performing" on the spot. He had to deliver the speech at his graduation. I read it and it was phenomenal. Yet, one can not imagine how grueling it was for him to deliver. It was the most painful experience to watch him go through. Pure anxiety. (Not that that incident in itself is abnormal.) He has a hard time procuring jobs, or housing. He has a hard time keeping them. He seems disorganized in his thoughts when responding on the spot or to strangers. He gets easily taken advantage of. Yet, when I finally get a chance to be alone with him he is wonderful, kind, gentle-spirited and very down-to-earth. I begin wondering why I was even worrying. Then he gets off into some sort of conspiracy theory and it gets weird.

You know, those red flags. Well, his brother and sisters adore him. He loves them, but they all seems so protective of him. Why? That is a behavior a family feels for a retarded child. He isn't retarded.

The very first time I saw anything different in his behavior was when he was around 10 or 11. He had always been very outgoing and made friends easily. All of the sudden he withdrew. He was in vacation bible school and just did not want to be there (seems natural), but he totally withdrew which was very out of the ordinary for him. Up until that time he was always the leader and the instigator, and very energetic and outspoken. The changes were subtle after that, at least at first. That was before the divorce.

In private school everyone loved him and accepted him openly. Yet, when we would leave school everyone would be waving and yelling goodbye and he would be in a daze. He would occassionally tell me that his perception was that no one liked him. On his birthday that year every kid in his class came and he could not understand why they were all there when they did not like him. Several girls had crushes on him. Yet, he never responded like he believed it, and continued to withdrawal. (Maybe drugs at this point?)

I took him to Hawaii with me one year. I have pictures. He was healthy looking, and smiling. By the next year he was sullen and dark and withdrawn and standoffish.

I kept thinking he was depressed and that he would pull out of it. He so totally underacheived from then on.

Hey thanks for all the replies!
Interesting stuff ...

Take care,
Fuzzy

{{{{{{{{{{Fuzzy}}}}}}}}}}}

Hope all is well with you hun

To answer your questions..... well as you probably know by now there are a few of us who came from the ConquerAnxiety.com forums....there were sooo many lasting friendships made there - truly amazing. I never thought that we would all connect here and to make so many more friendships? Truly wonderful I am amazed at everyone here.....such intelligent, supportive and amazing people.

If I may say so....this site has been a godsend. I am finding that it is much more stimulating emotionally (which is a good thing). I had a couple of bad experiences on the CA board which were draining to me and as well I found the way it was closed with only a week notice sent all of us anxiety sufferers out onto the street without a net.....a scary time for sure. This site has been the net catching us Thank you Jill for finding it

Ahhh now then...support and enabling....my view only
Support is when you are there for the person no matter what their choices are....you will give them a shoulder to cry on...to vent...etc Enabling is when you let that support take over your thoughts and they are controlling you.

Shortened version support is your control...enabling is not your control (it is the person you are supporting)...just my thoughts.

I think that there are some great things happening here on the site for recovery...however I am the type that looks at the positive (as we all know eh? ) I was hoping that there could be some categories specifically geared towards recovery...the "avatar" thread comes to mind ....having that thread in a section as well as other topics in that sense would be a good idea (again just my thoughts)

Great questions Fuzzy....getting my brain working early here this morning is good


Heather

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change and the REALIST adjusts his sails." ~~~author unknown

Fuzzy,

Sorry it took so long for me to get to this...these are all terrific questions.

I visited a few other mental health sites when I was first searching around the 'Net, but I haven't been anywhere but here in ages. I think this is far and away the best support site I've seen.

It's funny...I read LMo's list of things she did that she was told were enabling, and when I got to some of them, I thought, "That's not enabling!!!" The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's not so much the behavior, but it's effect that defines enabling. The way I think about it, support makes it easier for someone to get better, and enabling makes it easier for them to stay sick. For instance, some disorders make it difficult to remember to take meds...so to leave that up to the person would actually make it very difficult for them to get well...in that case, making sure the person took his/her meds would be support. But if someone is struggling with autonomy, and has the ability to remember and take their meds as required, than maybe controlling that for him/her keeps them "dependent" and could be detrimental to recovery, making the very same action enabling. One thing that I think probably always consitutes enabling is making excuses for a person...this shelters a person from the consequences of his/her illness, which almost invariably keeps the person in a position where the illness is more comfortable than the recovery.

I have a friend whose sister-in-law is bipolar. One of the symptoms she has is that she cannot recognize when she is heading toward an episode. So, she and her husband made a deal that if he thinks she needs to go to the hospital, then she goes...it's totally up to him, not her. Now for someone else, this might be enabling...taking away the responsibility for one's own illness and treatment. But since her illness impairs her ability to make this decision, it is support for her. Anyway, have I rambled enough? : )

You also asked about making this site more recovery oriented. I think the tone of the site has a lot to do with what people happen to be posting about. So, the best way to make the site more recovery-oriented is to ask more questions geared toward recovery. There is one specific thing I had talked about with some people, but never really did anything about. I have a very good workbook on self-esteem, but it's sometimes kind of hard to discipline myself to work through the exercises all on my own. If people would be interested, we could work through them together, either here on the forums, or in chat. Anyone who might be interested could either reply here or PM me.

Thanks for the very thought-provoking post, Fuzzy! : )
*hugs*
mj

Mj,
I'd like to work thru the workbook with you and think it might be great to start a thread or something if that's possible so those who want can go thru it together.

Chats a good idea but for me it wouldn't work cause of the time diff thing :O(
Heidu

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John Ruskin

I'd be interested in working thru. the self-esteem workbook, too, (((MJ)))....

<font color=blue>HI FROM PEANUT</font color=blue>

Thanks Heather and mj I would be interested in working through the workbook on self-esteem with you, mj!!!

Hugs,
Fuzzy

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

Shortened version support is your control...enabling is not your control (it is the person you are supporting)...just my thoughts.

<hr></blockquote>

Heather (welcome back, by the way!) - that was perfect! Well put! Mind if I borrow that? I'll give you full credit ;-)

We are ALL going to be a-ok!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

support makes it easier for someone to get better, and enabling makes it easier for them to stay sick

<hr></blockquote>

You guys are REALLY GOOD!!!!

We are ALL going to be a-ok!