The thing about Rescuers is that they can find themselves in relationships with people who exhibit significant deficits or toxic behaviour, feeling they are ‘the one’ who can heal them and change them.
Often, they find themselves navigating and self-sacrificing for a person who is not in a place where they are willing and able to work on their life issues. And yet, they keep sacrificing, feeding off the changes they do see. The nature of the Rescuer is to be able to walk into a room and, within a short period of time, pick out the people with rejection issues, loneliness, or low self-esteem, and feel energised at the thought of being the healer and helper to such people.
A clear trigger for the Rescuer is when they give, give, give and do not get anything in return, either from those they support or in general. Worse still, what they have to give meets with rejection, which is brutal on their sensitive feelings, often touching deeply on their own trauma.
The thing is that they are often giving to others out of what they themselves are still waiting to receive, and as such are giving, loving, and serving others out of their deficit, not out of abundance.
Rescuers may well be naturally attuned carers, and thank the universe that they exist—I would never want to take away their white horse, as the world would be in a much worse state without them. However, what they give to others is also meant for them; it was not meant to pass them by.
They are not mere carriers of love and regard in an external carrier bag into the hands of others; the love and regard they give also needs to do its restorative work in them, and it is this deficit which often contributes to their own burnout.
Rescuers are not good at analysing their own needs or questioning the origin of the gift they possess, and as such are often blissfully unaware that their radar for people in need or trauma can often stem from their own unresolved trauma. This is caused by trauma-based sensitisation, where their own sore places resonate with the wounds of others, and as yet they remain unhealed from their own journey and developmental years.
It is the saddest thing that those who most care, most give, and most self-sacrifice can so often be internally craving and waiting to be loved, cared for, nurtured, and healed. So many Rescuers reach burnout and mental exhaustion, often lacking the boundaries that are essential for the giver, since ‘takers’ have none.
At best, the bereft Rescuer will find their way into therapy and perhaps, just maybe, finally receive what was always theirs to have.
