Please don't help. Instead, be supportive.

Within the past month, I have had three different women help me, and all of them really pissed me off.

Every single one of them was sincere in their desire to take care of me. One followed me out of a room I left so that I wouldn't get upset in public; instead of lessening attention on me, her coming after me increased the attention. And she (again, in her attempt to be useful) intruded upon me when she wasn't welcome.

Another was in the same group, and she did the same thing--intruded upon me without my permission. Her type of help was more codependent that the first woman. She want to "handle" me, fix me, tell me what I need to do. I could barely keep my temper.

The third was the other day on the phone. A fairly new friend who I felt a connection to. I shared my experience at the presentation workshop with her, and went on to attempt to share the insights I had gained from it, how I was using the experience to learn. Instead of listening to me and acknowledging my insights, she proceeded to confer her own insights onto me, giving me advice that I hadn't asked for. I ended the conversation feeling angry and disconnected.

Why do so many women take it upon themselves to help others? Helping without permission is intrusive and inappropriate. It is caregiving gone astray.

Helping is not empowering. It is belittling, reducing the person being helped to child status, or at least to "less than" status--less than the person helping.

Yes, I know that people who help don't believe that they are belittling. And I know that they really do (mostly) seek to contribute. But helping isn't the way...

Supporting is the way. Supporting someone is empowering them. It is giving them space, listening (really listening) to them, offering the silence in which they can find their own answers. To use my own experiences as an example, Woman #1 should have stayed in her seat and let me go, given me space to work through my upset so that I could quietly come back and join the group without any further ripples. Woman #2 should have simply left me alone completely; she had nothing of value to contribute nor could she give me a nurturing silence. Woman #3 should have gotten out of the way and listened to what I was saying rather than overlaying my own insights with her (in her opinion) superior judgement.

How do we know what to do to support somone? Easy:

1. Don't offer any insights, opinions, advice or feedback unless asked to do so. I promise, I (and I'm betting pretty much everybody else, including you) am able to work through my own learning and growth experiences, and I just need you to listen and engage me in an interested but not advisory capacity. If I want your input, I will ask you for it. Promise.
2. OK, so there may be times when I am so in the midst of things I can't see straight, and I don't think to ask you. If that's the case, and you really do believe that you have something supportive to offer me, ASK ME FOR PERMISSION FIRST. Trust me to know whether I can absorb what you have to say. I may not be in a place where I can really hear you, and will only resent your input.

I know that I have helped other people in my life...meaning that I intruded with my person or my advice when neither was what was needed. I have worked hard over the past decade or so to change that, trying to remember to step back and give the hurting person space to heal themselves. It's hard though. The female urge to help is something we are taught as we grow up, or it may even be hardwired into us.But helping isn't...um...helpful.

The next time you want to help someone (husband, child, friend, stranger), consciously step back and work on being supportive. Listen, offer space and silence, and be ready to provide input when invited to do so.

I'd love to hear your ideas on this topic...please share your own experiences as helper/helpee, supporter/supportee.

Comments

[Pace]

Trish,

I totally agree. Sometimes it's very hard to refrain from showering others with our unasked-for wisdom, but it's kind of crazy that we never learn. In my experience, I've helped someone without being welcome to about a thousand times, and it's actually been useful to them exactly zero times. You'd think we'd learn, y'know?

Even though I'm getting better at curbing my impulses these days, it still comes up between me and my partner Kyeli. Even when I don't say anything, she can sense me vibrating with the desire to help, so we end up in a similar situation. I don't know what to do about the vibrating, though. (:

[Ulla Hennig]

Trish,
thanks for that post. I just experienced a similar thing: a friend of mine knows another woman who she thinks I would like to meet. She gave me her telephone number, both privat and at the office, and her e-mail-address. And she told the other woman about me, how nice it would be to meet me and so on. Of course my friend "only wants to help me", but I felt intruded upon me. The point is that up to now I haven't found the courage to tell my friend that I feld intruded by her, fearing that I might hurt her.

[Trish Lambert]

Thanks for your comments!!!

Pace, Laugh! I can just picture you sitting there vibrating with Kyeli trying to ignore you. I know what you mean, it's almost a reflex to help isn't it?

Ulla, Knowing that it's more reflex than conscious may help you fend off your friend in a loving way. I'm sure she believes she is making a huge contribution to you, and I don't know that there's any way to avoid at least a few hurt feelings when you decline her offers. If you can do it from the heart, perhaps, "I appreciate your being here to support me, but I would like you to hold off on suggestions and other input for now. I'll ask you for your thoughts when I'm at a place where I can take them in." Or something like that. It's easy to talk about it from afar, though. I'll be honest--when I'm intruded on, I get angry and it's hard for me to be polite. I get fairly brusque, which can be hard to take. So, as my mother used to tell me when I was child, don't do as I do! Do as I suggest!

[Thomas Mangum]

OH yeah sister. So glad you wrote that and completely know what you mean! PERMISSION! PERMISSION! PERMISSION!

[Donald Wickham]

Trish,

Very well said. And women aren't the only ones who do this. As a man, and a compulsive "fixer" I am imediately thinking of a fix or solution and have to stop and return to listening. And by listening, I don't mean the ability to parrot back what was said, which I'm also good at, but actively giving my full attention, even my heart, to the person. Remembering Job's friends, the one who was just "present" and there was more comfort and support than all the others with their opinions and explinations (all wrong too!). Why is it so hard to remember this! It is almost always are struggle, at least for me, to turn off the "Mr. Fixit" and be there for them. But I'm getting better at it.

[Monique]

you created all these situations and reasons to be angry. YOU sent out the "LOOK at me" and "Help me feel angry" energy. YOU attracted these people and situations.

[Trish Lambert]

Donald,

You make a good point. I think that "helping" is a human condition, not a gender based one, grounded in an "I know better than you" assumption. Thanks for weighing in!

Monique,

You've supported my assertion. YOU know about things better than I do, and you are HELPING me see the error of my ways--worse than the women I talked about, because you are a completel stranger. And as I apparently attracted YOU to my universe, I'm trying to figure out why I attracted someone so hostile and self-righteous to respond to this post. Given the hundreds of ways you could have chosen to make your point, you elected to "swoop in, shit, and fly out." But no worries...I'll figure out a way to learn from it.