Dear ironwoman32:

It would be a good thing if you could find a way to help others and not hurt yourself.

It reads to me that likely, when you were a child, a young child, you observed the pain of your mother/ father (either one or both) and felt it greatly. Their pain threatened your feeling of safety. From personal experience, I know how threatening it is, for a younger child, to see a parent in great pain, physical, mental. The danger perceived is losing the hurting parent and being left behind, helpless.

So the solution is to help the parent so that he/ she is strong enough to stay alive and be there for you, as you are dependent on them.

To help others without hurting yourself, best, I believe, for you to attend competent therapy so to process those emotional experiences of early childhood when you held so tight to the “solution of helping others, so tight, that not helping, or not helping enough means dire consequences for you.

There is this early anxiety here, for the child that you were, for the adult that you are, and so, it is not easy to deal with this.

Post again, anytime.

anita