Why do I always want to rescue my mother?

"I am constantly rescuing my mother. I do this out of my own fear, obviously. This is unhealthy, and I want to work on this."

If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself. It is a real self-inquiry — one person's inner dialogue on this question, unaltered except for readability.

Self-Observation on why I always want to rescue my mother

• I realize that this is one central theme in my life.
• I heard what it means in essence: I want to be rescued myself.
• When my mother is acting weak, it immediately triggers me. Now I have awareness of it. I mean, when she is acting weak, I start to feel fear and anxiety.
• She is manipulating me with this.
• I feel shame, and I get angry and just want to walk away from the situation. And then I go back and do ‘do the rescue’… Something pulls me back every time.
• I am afraid that if I stopped doing this, then she would not be able to cope.
• This is keeping me back from living my life the way I would really like. After all, I feel as if this is my job. I know it is weird, but this is how I feel. I actually view this as my primary job in life.
• I know that my mother would not want me to live a ‘muted’ life because of this. 
• I dream of a life where we don’t play this sick game and constantly struggle with my mother. But rather a relationship where we can be honest and still have a loving relationship.
• Yes, there is dishonesty. 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I don’t think that my mother does this consciously. I think she brought this from her own family of origin.
• I realize that it is how our relationship is ‘set up’ in a way. She is the ‘weak one’ and I am the ‘strong one’.
• She, acting weak, and I, acting strong, is the thing that keeps this thing going. And anxiety in the background for both of us.
• Maybe a good idea is if I talk this over with her. Maybe she will understand, and then we can change this part of our relationship together. If she does not, then at least I know.
• Let’s face it: After all, it is my decision and it is my life that I need to take care of anyway.
• What helps me is that I know that I love her.
• What also helps is that I realize that I cannot just blame my mother; I am also responsible for this. I let the game go on, too, and I want something out of it, too.
• My mother feels my fear in the background, certainly. Maybe if I could let this fear go, then this wicked game would stop automatically.
• I have to work more on this: If I stop ‘playing’ this, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love her.
• Ok, here is the core of the problem as I understand it now: It is my fear of losing my safety that keeps this dynamic going: ‘If I don’t help her, something terrible will happen and she will not be there to save me. So I’d better save her.’ This has nothing to do with the love I feel for my mother.
• I do this almost everywhere in my life. Though I don’t recognize it usually. And it comes in all shapes and forms, from anger to people pleasing, to feeling weak and inferior, and so on.

If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter's journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.