Recognize your Rescuer Role in the Drama Trauma
Don’t wait for Rescuer's! @ Moab Giants with the kiddo over break - I’m a goof but ya gotta play, yo.
what Rescuer means and how to recognize that role
I’ve found the Rescuer role is the predominant one folks I work with play - in large part because they are servant leaders/educators and change agents so their energy and efforts are outward seeking naturally. The line between serving and rescuing can be blurry. Rescuers lose their own empowerment and sense of choice in relationships as they slide into over-functioning and over-working.
Last post I talked about how to recognize the drama trauma cycle and the 3 main roles: Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim. Check that out first here if you missed it.
I see the drama patterns all over from relationships to movies.
Personally, reflecting on my past rescuing of students or colleagues or partners - I would over-function and jump to advice and fixing. I am forever grateful to how I’ve shifted mindset and vocation to coaching instead - that has been a game changer across all my relationships, even parenting - although that one is hard at the moment to shift given the age of 9.
Then in modern entertainment, the ‘chick flick’ bullshit makes me lose my brain - a victim (damsel in distress) waiting to be rescued ( by a hero) from the persecutor (villain). Let me get academic-y for a moment — a colleague and I wrote on gender and diversity representation in Hollywood films after watching in the theater a horrific drama trauma representation of college women (can’t remember which film now). In our chapters in Anti-Intellectual Representations of American Colleges and Universities we overview the gendered and racist stereotypes that show up in film from early Hollywood days through about 2016. One I appropriately titled - Titillation, Murder, and Romance - as that’s Hollywood’s purpose for college women.
How damn trapping and appealing these drama dynamics are! Phew…
Pause for a moment and think about contemporary interpretation of fairy tales or Hollywood stories you grew up with or have seen lately. Can you identify this dynamic? What are the behaviors? Do they get out of the drama triangle?
The biggest place to look is when you find yourself in relationships that feel more draining or take up a lot of emotional space - you’re thinking about it long after the interaction or you’re doing work on their behalf, or you’re worrying about them or their issues. That sort of energy we are talking about today. Rescuers tend to be low on emotional rest.
Rescuers might be called or viewed as:
Intuitive to other’s needs
Knights in shining armor
Saviors or helpers
Servant leaders
Hero/heroine/shero
Fixers
Problem solvers
Nurturers or caring
Can do people
And the other (dark) side of the coin are these versions:
Co-dependent
Over-functioner
Over-worker
People pleaser
Self-neglecting
Burnout and overworked
Unaware of their own needs
Project their own advice out
Conflict intolerant
Rescuers are not Givers
I hear this pushback from clients - ‘but I am a giver.’ Great, then give until your heart is content. The world does need more givers.
But know the difference between rescuing behavior and giving.
Giving is when you do things for others with no expectation or hope of something back. Giving is free of strings. Giving is free of your desired outcome for the other person.
This one is tricky to see as you may not even realize what you are hoping to get back. Some sneaky expectations of return are:
Approval
Affection
Being liked
Their time
A purpose
Think about a colleague or friend or family member who makes things - food etc - but there is the expectation of you returning that attention back to give to them in various ways. Their need to be needed, valued, or then given attention back.
You may be saying right now, well, Tamara, that is just human needs or that doesn’t seem harmful. Let’s look at this closer.
There is a difference between asking for what you need (a hug, quality time with a loved one, etc) and expecting these things from another individual without them knowing or agreeing to that expectation or outcome, which is often the case of unknown expectations - a killer to intimacy and acceptance.
The hurt comes in at least two places. One, the victim’s ‘poor me’ gets reinforced as ‘yea, poor you, let me fix this for you’ so it’s validating victimhood. Two, the rescuer asserts their solution or outcome on the other person and can be seen as the Persecutor if the victim doesn’t take their advice.
Rescuers are encouraged by the system
Yes ,you read that right but you’re not off the hook. One main way I see rescuing showing up in higher ed is when high-achieving folks with big hearts do for others what they can/need to do for themselves.
Big examples are holding external deadlines for other’s work timelines, chasing others for their work, or emailing them for checkins. I see this a lot more these days in graduate education between the advisor - student relationship where the advisor plays helper/rescuer rather than mentor/coach. Higher education is meant to support adult learners which means scaffolding independent work, mentoring and coaching rather than hand-holding or doing for.
Creating next steps and todos for others when they need to decide what they will do.
Notice the difference between this and when you are in charge of creating the agenda for meetings or committees. One key way to see the difference is to ask yourself, ‘is this mine to do?”
This can show up, as one client said, “I’m dragging people through their degree.” And it’s exhausting.
When I was a graduate faculty in a professional preparation program, I found that most students lacked guided mentorship and personal development to explore who they are and what their own shadows or triggers were to ensure they avoided projecting onto others. While we may hope that work is done in undergraduate or on one’s own, truth is that our educational system and capitalist go-go-go culture actively avoids and distracts most of us from this type of work that is so critical when we are in service to others.
Over my last years of teaching, I started to incorporate more personal development as professional preparation including mindfulness and other tools into what it meant to be a graduate student and a scholarly-leader. Know yourself in order to create positive change in the world.
How are you rescuing others in your life? At home, work, friendships, partnerships?
Start to identify how these behaviors show up in your interactions.
When Rescuers show up to my virtual coaching door it is typically because they’re at burnout stage or done tolerating living other people’s lives. They are ready to learn who they really are at their core and shift into aligned living and working.
Developing greater awareness is always the first step, but it is only the beginning. One of the biggest recommendations I make for folks is to shift from Rescuer to Coach, which I love to help folks shift into coaching mindset as it changes everything in your life.
One thing that becomes clearer the longer I’m out of higher ed and doing some deep soul work, life is too precious to tip toe around folks who perpetuate toxic drama.
I’m here to throw you some new tools so we undo this drama train wreck. If you like this and want more of how to know yourself and your patterns, we explore this in each of the 8 modules of my Reclaim You bootcamp workshop series. The next one will start up January 20th running Fridays for 8 weeks with recorded live calls and soul work. Sign up before December 31st with the coupon code FRIEND22 for a one time 15% discount on this series.
Additional resources I’ve enjoyed on the topic:
Read more about the shift from rescuer to coach here with the original developer of the Empowerment Dynamic - David Emerald, his book, The Power of TED* (book is okay-ish).
Creator, Challenger, Coach: A Deeper Dive into the TED* Roles pdf By Donna Zajonc
Blog post on How to Escape the Drama Triangle