There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help people – I’m sure we can agree this is an admirable trait. But some people go so far with this that it zaps their wellbeing, harms relationships and leaves them physically and mentally drained. Their actions go beyond kindness and into a state where they’re abandoning their own care and goals to try and save someone else. At this point, it no longer helps the person – it actually prevents the other party from fixing their own messes and learning important life lessons by themselves (an essential part of growth). But the rescuer doesn’t always see that, because they’re so overinvested in fixing other people (related: you might like to read my article about codependency here). I call this ‘rescuer complex’.
This often shows up in romantic relationships. I’ve worked with many single women who unconsciously attract ‘projects’ in need of rehabilitation rather than emotionally healthy partnerships (which they will often find ‘too boring’). The woman either ends up feeling abandoned when the partner heals themself and moves on, or she ends up stuck in frustration because the partner refuses to change, continuing to (for example) drink heavily or be emotionally absent.
Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I’m not a psychologist, I’m an energy healer, which means my role is about helping people recognise unhealthy patterns and then help clear the root causes of those patterns from their subconscious (more info about that at the end).
This article is a non-exhaustive list of some causes that I have observed giving rise to rescuer complex.
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1. Family culture
This isn’t about apportioning blame to family members, it’s about understanding context. Often we carry the beliefs and behaviours that have been modelled to us as children into adulthood – even if we reject those on a conscious level, they can still stick at a subconscious level. If you’ve grown up in a family where one sibling had a chronic illness, for example, all of the family’s attention would have (for obvious reasons) been on that sibling, inadvertently teaching the other kids that their needs are less important than other people’s. That belief can certainly be useful for humility, but if your energy has taken that belief to extremes, you may find yourself still pushing your needs to the bottom of the pile in favour of meeting other people’s needs – rescuing them from any drama, real or perceived. That’s not true for everyone who had this experience, but it can happen for some.
Another example: families where one kid was the favourite, teaching the other kids they can only ever accept tiny scraps of love or affection that are thrown their way, rather than growing up believing they deserve to be on an equal footing in a relationship.
2. Conditioning of women
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Ugh. This is really gross, but many women are conditioned to be caretakers in a way that men are not. Little girls are rewarded for being ‘good girls’ who look after others, and admonished for pursuing their own ambitions (think: “No one likes a show-off!”). Being raised in an organised religion can play a part, too. This conditioning can mean some women grow up believing deep down that it’s their duty to assist in the healing or rehabilitation of someone who treats them badly – and can feel a sense of failure if they haven’t done this. To be clear, caring about other people is a good thing; abandoning your own needs and putting up with bad behaviour to do so, is not.
3. Avoidance of self
I read a quote about this a few years ago that has mostly stuck with me. The part I’ve forgotten was (I think) about the author’s historical quests to rescue people from their own problems. The part I do remember said: ‘It wasn’t a virtue, it was a disguise.’ Often people aren’t rescuing others for glory or admiration, they’re doing it because they’re desperate to escape themselves. They’re so uncomfortable in their own skin that they want to disappear behind other people. Immersing themselves in other people’s problems is a covert avoidance of their own problems. It can also be an avoidance of their own goals and projects – kind of like an extreme form of procrastination (sometimes a deep fear of failure can be involved here).
I should point out that generally the rescuer is not aware this is going on – it’s all operating under the surface. So much so that they will occasionally complain that every time they attempt to work on their side hustle, passion project or personal development, a family member or friend has another crisis that diverts their energy, time (and sometimes, money) away from their own stuff. They’re in such a deep state of wanting to avoid their own development they’re unconsciously attracting situations to justify that avoidance. That’s how energy works – you tend to draw in what your energy is radiating (even if you’re not aware of it).
(Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash)
4. Believing you’re less than
Oh boy, the big one! Believing you’re not good enough makes you very susceptible to being drawn into the vortex of narcissistic dynamics, and relationships with people who are actively making all of their unhealed problems everyone else’s problem. If you believe you are less than (rather than equal to) other people, you’ll be more likely to trust someone who is making poor life choices despite what your intuition is telling you, believing you’re doing the honourable thing by ‘giving them the benefit of the doubt’. What you’re actually doing, though, is going against your intuition and prioritising a problematic person’s feelings and healing journey over your own, which can often end badly. By and large, people with healthy levels of self-worth don’t do this. They know they deserve to be treated fairly so they give problematic people a wide berth – and they’re far less likely to attract those sorts of people into their lives anyway. Read more about what fuels low self-worth here.
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When you really dig down into a rescuer’s MO, there can be a fear of abandonment guiding their behaviours – and this goes hand in hand with low self-worth. A limiting belief sitting in their subconsciousness says ‘I’m not lovable enough’ so they go out of their way to find someone who ‘needs’ them – the belief being ‘if I can prove my worth to another person by helping/healing them, they’ll have a reason to love me and they won’t leave me’. It’s a self-protective strategy that only keeps them in unhealthy or unbalanced relationships. Improving your self-worth is the key to attracting healthy relationships where there’s an equal balance of power and focus.
The takeaway
Rescuer complex is, well, complex, but there are underlying causes that could be contributing to it which, from a spiritual perspective, can absolutely be resolved. If any of these resonate and you’d like to talk to me about how energy healing could help you shift the underlying beliefs and issues that are fuelling unhealthy rescuer-type behaviours, you can reach me here or book a session here.