Hi Anita,

I was first put in the “fix it” role by my father. I used to see him on Sundays as he and my mom divorced when I was 2. He was by all accounts unstable, he used drugs, couldn’t hold a job, lost his license for drunk driving. He really wasn’t suitable to watch a child, and yet I was there every weekend. He abused me, and I didn’t come forward for years because he convinced me that I was the only good thing in his life and he would kill himself if he couldn’t see me. At home my mom was in an abusive relationship with my new stepdad and I felt like I had to protect her. I saw lots of physical abuse happen to her and many times tried to stop it. So I had the mental health of my parents on my shoulders from a young age. Each time things didn’t work out….with my dad, my mom and stepdad (they ultimately divorced too), then my uncle and some friendships, it’s like a very sick feeling comes up when I fail to make things work. I don’t know if everyone feels these situations so intensely but this last blow out with my friend has made so much stuff resurface.

I am trying to keep in mind that everyone whom this has happened with in the past is still alive. No one killed themselves or is left destroyed because I couldn’t fix something. That these relationships are much better as severed than still hanging on in a toxic way. And finally I am trying to free myself from feeling like it’s all on me to fix it. It’s just very hard to break these patterns.