Learning to act right (19)… When being needy is good for others!

Learning to act right (19)… When being needy is good for others!
Torrey Orton
July 17, 2011


S. is a fixer and a guilt artist, with shame toppings if possible. Fixing things for others, preferably without much recognition, is his primary means of justifying his otherwise (in his view) unworthy self. The joy of fixing a lot is never enough, however, to compensate the wrongs he has done in the process of trying to right things…even worse when the fix itself fails, too, as it did recently. You may recognise yourselves in this caricature somewhere.


So what to do when we are unwell, injured, beset by bad karma – especially the ones which challenge others' empathy or compassion, the ones in the extremes of life like prospectively terminal illnesses / injuries, committing or being victims of incarcerateable offenses, betrayals real or imagined, etc.? If we are reasonably well befriended, some of them will rush to palliate or placate the injuries.


Others will duck and run or just not be seen when they realise they've never experienced your bad luck before or it's their own bad dream. In either case, about then helplessness sets in. What can I do for you, they may ask, and you may say, literally, nothing, thinking what right do I have to ask for help, especially if I'm partly the author of my own condition?


But the friend needs your help to feel worthy themselves!! A fixer's catch 22: need to help my helpless friends, but not to help myself if helping them means helping them to help me!! In my most recent encounter with this dilemma I think I convinced the fixer, S. above, to accept that he had to bear the taint of a little help sticking to him from the virtuous action of his helping others know what to do so they did not feel helpless. There was additional pain for him, but not enough to compensate for the self-indulgence, of identifying what he really needs help with/for!


Of, course, sometimes the friends are helpless and that's for sure. They cannot undo the damage you have suffered, or you theirs. Then the fixer's in real trouble because the only solace for friends' helplessness is that painful truth. Herein's another story – the virtue of painful truths expounded rather than withheld. Doubly difficult for the fixer, but way too hard for many leaders.

I digress.