Be the helper
Are you a fixer? I for sure am. I was raised by a fixer, and I’ve spent the entirety of my life with this mentality. However, over the years I have evolved, and bettered the way I do things. But still, at the end of the day the mentality remains the same for me. Fixing is what I like to do. Unfortunately, although I’ve had some special circumstances, the results typically remain the same time and time again.
The fixer mentality can be explained based on attachment theory and if you don’t know what that is, no problem!
Let’s talk about it.
The attachment theory focuses on the emotional and physical bonds that surround caregivers. John Bowlby a psychologist in the 1930’s focused his studies on the attachments between children of all ages and their attachment to their primary caregiver. He surmised that when a children’s immediate needs for an attachment bond are not met, a child will feel threatened and act accordingly. (Crying, screaming, etc.) This can damage the attachment bonds going forward.
If you suffer from an unstable relationship with your parents, making a rocky attachment bond. It is a possibility that you will spend most of your growth and development years feeling as if you need earn love. In turn, this causes an overwhelming sense of selflessness, always putting other needs before your own, in order to feel as if you have earned their love, respect and commitment. In adulthood, this often creates “a fixer”. Similarly, if you are raised by a parent who has a fixer mentality, through modeling that behavior children are taught that is how love is shown and will often continue with the pattern.
The fixer mentality is explained by psychologists today as the overwhelming need to help others in their short comings, flaws, and success. Most people with “the fixer” mentality feel as if they are so flawed, they are beyond fixing so their natural response to that is to fix others and through that they feel a sense of satisfaction for themselves as well as the gratification of earning love.
I am so guilty of this!
My mom’s house was constantly referred to as “the home of misfit toys” when I was growing up. She was absolutely guilty of the “fixer” mentality. This is how I learned how to love. I was taught from a very young age that devoting 100 percent of your life to fixing your significant other was how you loved them. And separately from that, I was taught that I needed to earn my love from my mother, her love came in the form of praise from doing things for her. Washing the dishes every night, taking care of my brother when she was hung over. Getting my brother ready for bed when she was partying, supporting her shitty relationships even though I hated them. I remember being asked every time she had a new boyfriend if I liked them, I learned very quickly that if I just said yes, I liked them, she treated me better because if I didn’t, I would immediately get the “well, my relationship has nothing to do with you speech.”
As an adult, this behavior is something I have acknowledged over the years, I have joked about how I will continue “the house of misfits” and for a lot of years I did, friends that were struggling with nowhere to go, “oh here, come to my house”. “Oh, you’re trying to get clean, let me help you get through it”. “Oh, you just got out of jail and have no where to go, my couch is open”. Through the years I have been burned, let down and repeatedly taken advantage of by these people. Yet, these are the same people I climb mountains for still today. Why? Because I believe that everyone needs someone that doesn’t give up, I believe that everyone needs that someone to rely on to succeed. However, the recovery part of my brain knows that I am enabling them, I know I am always their safe fall back, I know that I will always end up the one taken advantage of.
Since losing my mom, I have learned that I come first. I know that I need to protect me, I know that the stability I have in my life comes first because that is what gives my children the stability and mom they need. However, I still go out of my way for people I probably shouldn’t. Just not in the same way I used too. And maybe drawing that line was really all that needed to be done.
I don’t want my children growing up with the “fixer” mentality. I want them to be different. I want them to know that you don’t need to earn love. I want them to know that it isn’t their job to take care of their significant other. However, with that, I want them to know that sometimes all it takes is one person to change the life of another. I want them to know they can be supportive and helpful in the growth of the people they love. It’s really a double-edged sword.
Where I went to college, if you are in the human services field, they call you “the helpers”. I have realized that within that double-edged sword, this is where the line is drawn. A clear difference between the “fixer” and the “helper”.
If you feel like you have “the fixer” mentality, take a look at your attachments as a child. Take an attachment style quiz. Sit in silence with memories of who you were attached to in your major development years and remember the feelings of that attachment. Then, draw yourself a line. Set healthy boundaries to encourage the growth from the “fixer” to the “helper”.
You will never fix anyone.
Fixing comes from within. Some people are happy with who they are and don’t even feel they need to be fixed. However, everyone needs help sometimes.
Be that person.
The helper.
The “fixer” mentality was beginning here, before I even knew the alphabet, I was forming habits that would follow me into adulthood.
