Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter It's the start of the New Year with the
promise of all things new, fresh and empowering. A good time we thought for rethinking
relationships getting rid of the bad and strengthening the good. Flair spoke to two
persons who already had a handle on dealing with the negatives in matters of the heart. Share your power story and tell us how you too plan to break out of damaging relationships for 2005.
IN CAREGIVER circles it's called 'compassion fatigue', and it may truly be all that and more.
Like a simmering volcano, it's the build-up from constantly being the 'middle man' in family fights, (sitting through griping sessions from either parents and siblings, and manning periodic 'crying on your shoulder' routines from different family members), all through the teenage and young adult years.
Still, some psychiatrists say there are remnants of several other ills at work when young adults take on the emotional burden of their dysfunctional families, suffering silently in the process.
Roxanne Wells, a twenty-six year old university student is currently working through her situation and shared her story requesting anonymity to avoid hurting her family.
HER STORY
"I am the third of four children, and you know what they say about the middle child, (how they're usually ignored), but I was only ignored up to a certain point. After that I found myself as the centrepiece of my family, I was the one who would actually be linking members of my family.
In one scenario my parents didn't talk to each other, my other sisters didn't seem to care, one was too young to really notice much.
So I'd do the communication, relay messages, pick up on cues, and help keep up appearances. Later when an older sibling was going through a bad marriage, I held her hand throughout. Another cousin had trauma in her family, they roped me in and there I was again the strong one."
RESPONSIBILITY
"When I finally started working, my sister also just started college at the same time and soon her entire care seemed to fall on me. She could not leave school to do anything, but I had a 'flexible job' my parents said, so I did all the errands related to her school life. At one point she did not do anything for herself. In addition I'd leave work on days to do odd jobs like return or pick up insurance forms for my parents, or care errands for my sister grocery, toiletry. My parents would call me up at work with requests to do photocopying, printing or any other private tasks they wouldn't or couldn't do at their offices (their jobs were much too important). No matter how I argued nobody saw my point. And yet after all of this I was always the one left afloat emotionally. No one thought my troubles were major enough."
But Dr. Anthony Allen, a Kingston-based psychiatrist, says Wells may be one of several young persons caught between one of various types of 'triangulation'.
Ranging from simple to complex, it is what U.S.-based researcher Linda Bell (Triangulation and Adolescent Development in the United States and Japan - Family Process, Summer, 2001), calls, "(Triangulation is) a ubiquitous pattern in human and even nonhuman relationships."
"Examples include complaining to a friend about one's mate, colleagues focusing together on the shortcomings of the boss, or a child asking a parent to solve a problem with a sibling. One triangulation structure involves a third party who is "pushed out" and distanced as a way of resolving or avoiding conflict in the dyad... Another triangulation structure involves a third party who is "pulled in" as a coalition partner to one of the original dyad, or as a mediator or go-between for the dyad..."
Dr. Allen says in families it often surfaces as a situation where one parent is not functioning as they should and where one child may take on the role of a mediator.
But there can also be an element of 'parentification' involved where one child assumes, or is saddled with the responsibility of 'parenting' the family.
The results can be silently devastating, as Roxanne found.
"I basically put my feelings aside so many times, that everyone just started to do it too, and treated me like my feelings were not important.
They'd say things like, "Oh you're the strong one, nothing bothers you." But that was not true, that's because nobody ever asked."
"I got to where I had a feeling of rage, rage, rage that I (felt ) I could do nothing about. I had kinda internalised to the point where I was getting really sad, but it felt so normal that I didn't even know that I was sad."
In the end I realised that I was holding everybody's hand, that I had jumped from 1726, (years old), that I was spending my money on other people's crises, until I had nothing left for me. (At one point I was keeping something like ten per cent of what I earned each month).
It got to the stage where I'd hear them on the phone, going on and on and I'd immediately get a headache. Because I knew that what it really meant eventually was that they wanted something from me. Sometimes it was that I was to drop everything and come home to help."
FIGHTING BACK
"Now I'm withdrawing gradually and it's been total hell. My parents especially, told me how 'wicked' I was, and how 'thoughtless' I'm being. And it has been difficult to start saying 'no' after saying 'yes', 'it's not a problem' for so long, so many times," Wells said.
"Even now if you're not careful you begin to expect it from your relationships. In fact my relationships so far have been with men who turned out to be worthless, who demand and never give, they were always expecting, and I was always giving and putting my feelings last. And that was my fear that I'd end up with some man who treated me as a nobody.
I'm trying to heal though. I'm reading self help books, I've signed up for counselling, and I'm setting my own boundaries. I'm starting to get a life regardless of what they want.
I'm saying no, and the more I say it the easier it becomes. I've slipped up a few times but at least now I recognise what's happening.
ANALYSIS
Dr. Allen says persons like Roxanne are always the ones who eventually lose too much.
"In the family parents need to function as parents, younger members should not be taking on adult responsibilities unless parents are unable to, due to illness, etc. As one gets older one should be able to leave home and take on one's own life."
He says the effects of this role shifting can be difficult and enduring;
* If a young person is triangulated, he may be prevented from meeting his own development needs. For example, in his career, and especially in building relationships because if he is still caught up in his original family (as a young adult) it's hard to build a new relationship and family of his own.
* Apart from having divided loyalties to their original families, they could have the stress of dealing with their own families in that there may be the fear or scepticism that the dysfunction will be repeated with their own spouses and children.
* They may bring some dysfunctionality to their own families.
* They may develop a major complex and the dysfunctionality may be taken into the
workplace where personal
well-being, and prospects are sacrificed for others.
* Physical symptoms appear or persist including aches, muscular tensions, and stress-related ills.
RED FLAGS
* Being made to feel guilty unnecessarily (by recipients) even after you regularly extend yourself.
* Constantly neglecting your own well-being, recreation, health, support systems, and balance in fervour of appeasing others.
* Constantly resentful even while voluntarily carrying out the wishes of your family members.
