Overcoming the Need to Fix

[Morning Glory]

by James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D

What is the need to fix?

The need to fix is:

• Compulsively driven behavior to rescue or help another person, place, or thing to be the way you believe it "should be.''
• Seeing another person, place, or thing as "in need'' and the automatic response pattern to this message.
• Belief that, unless everything is "just right'' for another person, then that person can never fully be happy in life.
• Obsessive need to have every thing, person, and place "perfect'' or "correct'' in order for you to be comfortable enough to be relaxed and accepting of them.
• Inability to accept people, places, or things the way they are and the chronic attempt at changing them even if they are unchangeable.
• Acting on the belief that you have more knowledge than others as to what is good for them so you strive to correct their thinking to "see the light'' in your way.
• Inability to maintain emotional detachment from a person, place, or thing that is hurting or in trouble. You proceed to fix them even if this means that they are hindered from personal growth and accepting personal responsibility for their own actions.
• Inability to not give advice, suggestions, or offers of help, even when you know in doing so that it will hinder another person's growth and personal mastery in life.
• Interfering in business and personal affairs "to help'' people even when they haven't asked for your help or assistance.
• Drive to feel "needed'' or "wanted'' which leads you to become overly involved and overresponsible in your relationships with persons, places, and things.
• Result of a pattern of getting approval and recognition from others for "helping'' in the past with the belief that this is the only way you can have meaning in life.

What are the negative effects of the compulsive need to fix?

If your compulsive need to control others by "fixing" them is not resolved, they you:

• Run the risk of developing a series of relationships with people, places, or things who become overly dependent on you.
• Run the risk of becoming a caretaker to many with few people giving you the healthy emotional support you need to be a fully functioning and coping human.
• Will be unable to remain emotionally detached when you run across a person, place, or thing which appears "helpless.''
• Experience people moving away from you if they no longer desire "to be fixed'' by your advice, solutions, or insights.
• Will never take care of your own needs because you will have successfully avoided focusing on self by diverting your focus to fixing others.
• Become guilt ridden if people, places, or things which you are trying "to fix'' don't get "fixed'' and instead get worse.
• Might tie your identity into the "fixer'' role and never be able to enjoy a truly healthy give and receive relationship with anyone.
• Will feign "wellness'' as a mask to convince others you have found the answers "to fix'' them and thus remain static or reverse in your personal emotional health.
• Will hand out a lot of "I owe you's'' to those you fix in hope they will be there for you when you need them, unfortunately forgetting that your only worth to them has been the fixing you perform and they will not "come through'' the way you hope they will in your time of need.
• Might be the one who does all the work in a relationship and, once you "stop the work,'' the relationship will die since you are no longer working at fixing it.
• Might become hostile, angry, rageful, or hateful to those whom you have "fixed'' if they do not give you enough recognition in return for your efforts.
• Might have successfully used everyone else's problems to divert your attention from yourself, the only one you have greatest odds of fixing because you can have control and change yourself best.
• Will increase in your low self-esteem as you lose yourself in "fixing'' others.

How is the need to fix a control issue?

The need to fix is a control issue because:

• It puts the "locus of control'' into your hands as the fixer rather than into the hands of those being fixed where it correctly belongs.
• If you are a "fix it'' person, you end up trying to control every situation, person, place, or thing to be "right'' or "perfect'' so that you can feel sane, safe, and in control.
• Fixing is taking over the responsibility of another person, place or thing and being sure that the outcome for them is positive and in accord with your mental picture or ideal of the "way things should be'' in your world.
• It robs people, places, and things of their freedom to be themselves because of your need to correct, change, or alter them to be the way you want them to be.
• Giving advice, offering solutions, and directing choices puts you in a "power'' and "controlling'' position over those things you are trying to fix.
• In your enthusiasm to help, you run the risk of using threats, coercion, or intimidation to get others to do what you believe will fix them.
• In your compulsive, addictive, or obsessive need to fix, you might be taking on uncontrollable and unchangeable things which burn you out and leave you in need of being "fixed.''
• The sense of over-responsibility which leads you to need to fix others is a "de-powering'' of the others to take responsibility for themselves; it puts the onus of accountability on you if the solutions do not succeed. It also puts the recognition for their success on you rather than on those you are fixing.
• "Addicted fixers'' do not allow those whom they are trying to fix to become independent or to think and try things out on their own and create over-dependency on themselves to make things right.
• Being a "fixer'' is a powerful position which gives you a sense of importance, being special, and a reason for being.
• Those being "fixed'' often feel "out of control'' in terms of what is happening in their lives and can become dependent on you the fixer to "do for them'' rather than to "do for themselves.''
• Although "fixing'' looks altruistic, it is really a sef-centered behavior because the outcome is not so much for the other's benefit but to make you feel good, relaxed, at peace in that things are the way they "should be.''

What irrational thinking leads to the need to fix?

Examples of irrational thinking which leads you to the need to fix other people, places, or things are:

• When you have the resources materially, emotionally, intellectually, and energy-wise, you should always be ready to share these with others less fortunate than you whom you perceive to be in need of help and assistance.
• You should never stand by and not get involved when you see someone hurting and in need.
• You are rewarded in so many ways for the sacrifices you make to help others and it is a straight path to heaven if you give to others without any hesitation.
• You should give insights from your life experiences whenever you find someone in a similar situation.
• You should never wait for a person to ask for help since so many people are shy when it comes to admitting they don't know what to do with their lives.
• You must die to self if you are to gain eternal reward. To be focused only on solving your own problems is so selfish. Therefore, you are sure to gain a higher eternal reward if you dedicate your life to helping others no matter what are the physical or emotional costs to yourself.
• It is impossible to ignore a plea for help especially when it comes from someone who is obviously "helpless.''
• It is a real sign of your personal growth that, after a time in recovery, you can have the insights, answers, solutions, and clarity of direction for everyone with whom you come in contact.
• You can burn yourself out just focused on your own personal growth so to revitalize yourself you should get involved with other people's problems to give you a better perspective on your own problems.
• What will others think of you if you don't offer help to someone who is obviously in need?
• Your meaning and purpose in life will be threatened if you are not needed to fix, rescue, or help someone.
• Being a "fixer'' is not something which you want to avoid being because it is the only way you have ever gotten people to recognize and to accept you.

Ways to overcome compulsive fixing

In order to overcome being a compulsive "fixer" you need to:

• Accept the belief that others must accept personal responsibility for their own lives and actions.
• Recognize that being a "fixer'' is a way to control others. It places the responsibility for the other's actions on you, which is not where it belongs.
• Establish a healthy emotional boundary between you and those whom you desire to fix.
• Develop a philosophy of "helping'' which emphasizes that what people need is emotional support and understanding of their feelings concerning a problem rather than advice, direction, suggestions, or "content'' solutions.
• Establish healthy emotional detachment from the persons, places, things whom you feel driven to "fix".
• Find your reinforcement, strokes, or "warm fuzzies'' from within yourself and not get "hooked'' on the need for approval or recognition from others for what you do for them.
• Accept that in "helping'' another the goal and purpose is to help the other to help himself.
• Recognize that "doing for'' another is not helping another get strong, healthy, or independent.
• Recognize when the compulsion "to fix'' arises so that you can use rational thinking and feeling to develop strategies of helping which leave the others free to "fix'' themselves.
• Accept that you can only fix one person, namely yourself, and that all others must be responsible for "fixing'' themselves.
• Give permission to the people in your life to call you on it or to confront you when you are caught up in the need to "fix'' them.
• Gain support from your support network as you let go of the people, places, and things you feel compelled to fix.
• Recognize that the only way you can get significant others to recognize that they need help is to be "squeaky clean and healthy'' in your relationship with them.
• Accept that your fantasy or dream of how others would be if they changed is your fantasy and dream and not necessarily theirs.
• Identify that, if another has a problem, then they have to own it if they are ever going to fix it and that, if you try to fix the problem, then you are taking on ownership of the problem as your own.
• Accept that, when a problem exists in your relationship with another, both parties must work on it to fix it if they are to come to a compromise and healthy "win win'' resolution.
• Identify that obligation and over-responsibility are not healthy enough reasons to keep you in a "fixer'' posture with others.
• Realize that guilt as a motivator to keep you hooked into a "fixer-fixee'' relationship is unhealthy for you and the other.

Steps to overcome the "fixer" role

Step 1: In your journal, you first need to list and identify all persons, places, and things with whom you are a ``fixer.''

A. The people I feel a need to "fix'' are:
B. The places I feel a need to "fix'' are:
C. The things I feel a need to "fix'' are:

Step 2: For each person, place, or thing identify the following:

A. What are the issues that need fixing?
B. For whom are these issues a problem? Are they a problem for you, a problem for the other, or a problem for both of you?
C. How openly has the other admitted these issues are problems and how have they asked for your help to ``fix'' them?
D. How has the other tried to take steps to solve or "fix'' these problems on their own? How successful have they been?

Step 3: You next need to identify what are the "hooks'' in your relationship with each person, place, or thing that keep you in your addicted fixer role. For each person, place, or thing you identified in Step 1 now identify which of these twenty hooks exist for you and put an X next to it..

Emotional Hooks Self Assessment
___ ( 1) Your sense of guilt if they should get worse
___ ( 2) Your sense of over-responsibility
___ ( 3) Your sense of obligation
___ ( 4) Your fantasy of a change in the relationship
___ ( 5) Fear of losing them
___ ( 6) Your need to be needed
___ ( 7) Your need to control others
___ ( 8) Your fear of going insane if they don't change
___ ( 9) Your overemotional enmeshment or attachment with them
___ (10) Your need for approval and recognition
___ (11) Your need to be seen as a "helper'' who does good for others
___ (12) A martyr complex. This is your role in life to clean up the messes which others make in your life
___ (13) A sense that they can't do it without you
___ (14) A way of keeping the focus off your needs by keeping the spotlight on help of others
___ (15) The others don't recognize that you are an addicted fixer with them
___ (16) Your own low self-esteem and unhealthy way of thinking, feeling, and acting
___ (17) Your inability to emotionally detach from others who are in a toxic relationship with you
___ (18) Your competitive need to look more knowledgeable, wiser, and more "together'' than the other
___ (19) Your need to ensure that your current life is not as dysfunctional as your past life was
___ (20) Your "pride'' that only you can correct or fix things for others

Step 4: Once you identify the "hooks'' in the relationship with each person, place, and thing for whom you are an addicted fixer, then you need to develop rational, healthy alternative beliefs which allow you to "let go'' of the need to "fix'' them.

Step 5: You then need to get support from your own network of support to "let go'' of the need to "fix'' these persons, places, and things.

Step 6: You need to give back to each person, place, and thing the responsibility for their own actions and solutions to their problems.

Step 7: You need to seek your Higher Power's strength as you cease your "fixer'' role in the lives of these persons, places, and things.

Step 8: If you find yourself relapsing into the "fixer'' role again with any person, place, or thing, then return to Step 1 and begin again.

[aztchr]

I get confused as to when it's ok to help/fix and when it's not.
Should I never offer help? If someone is struggling with something, I always thought we should reach out to them because I would want someone to do the same for me.

Also, would it help the A in my life to read this to understand my "need to fix" or because he's in denial would it really just be wasted info. and an attempt on my part to be controlling?

[Morning Glory]

Read these on manipulation and responsibility astchr and see if you can sort out what is manipulation and avoiding responsibility and what is a real need for help.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ipulation.html (Eliminating Manipulation)

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...nsibility.html (Accepting personal responsibility)

[aztchr]

Great info, Morning Glory! I appreciate the extra links.
I'll process more tomorrow. Good night!

[ICU]

Thanks for the great info. MG! This should be a sticky!!

[miss communicat]

MG

Thank you so much. I found ALL of this really applicable and will save it. A sticky, yes.

[deax]

I understand the gist of what all of this is saying. I see how I myself am guilty of this, and need to start doing a lot of hard work on myself. I know that on the Emotional Hooks Self-Assessment I have about 14 of the 20 issues listed. I get it and I accept it and I am working on it. With that said....

Although "fixing'' looks altruistic, it is really a sef-centered behavior because the outcome is not so much for the other's benefit but to make you feel good, relaxed, at peace in that things are the way they "should be.''

I'm sorry but to some degree, I take issue with this. If you're in a relationship with an addict, and you find out the extent of the situation over time, I think the NORMAL thing most people would do is jump in and try to help the person they love to get better. I don't necessarily believe this is self-centered, I think it's natural. I do think it's kind. And no 'normal' person would want to be in a relationship burdened by addictions and al that entails, so desperately seeking ways to eliminate that problem and make the relationship and your partner healthier IS the way things "should be"!

I understand the problem is the extent to which people take their need to help the other, and I know I made my boyfriend's problems mine and was completely enmeshed. I'm guilty of that. However, on occasion, some of this stuff sounds a little hokey to me. I don't think I was being selfish, I think I was trying to help the only way I knew how, until I ran into a wall enough times to learn that nothing I could say or do would work.

I by no means intended to negate the ideas in this post, there's a lot of truth and wisdom there. ANd I know we're supposed to take what we need and leave the rest. But the above point is a little hard for me to swallow in that it seems so unfair to people with good intentions.

[denny57]

Originally Posted by deax

And no 'normal' person would want to be in a relationship burdened by addictions and al that entails, so desperately seeking ways to eliminate that problem and make the relationship and your partner healthier IS the way things "should be"!

When I got the point where I believed "desperately seeking ways" to eliminate someone else's problems and make my partner healthier was "normal", it was then I realized my life and thinking was out of control. I highly recommend therapy or Al-Anon as a way to learn why this is not normal behavior.

[miss communicat]

(((deax)))

keep up the good work on yourself.

Keep the focus on YOU, not HIM.

Soon, you will know what "normal" (for you) is. After a long emotional involvement with an addict/alcoholic, we lose our internal compass. It gets fixed on THEM like a "magnetic north".

It gets better each day you choose to take care of yourself and your needs without the angst of caretaking an addict.

[reikihelps]

Thanks MG. Do the Messinas have books out? Can you recommend any? I think the 3 links are very helpful.
Deax, I think it's normal to want things to be better but it's an issue of balance. When the fix it desire is so strong that itt takes over all else, we need to look at it. For me, it is initially painful to let go but I know that it's the only real way to 'help' and that fear eventually subsides.
It is so challenging with those we love to let go.
best wishes,
Reikihelps

[Morning Glory]

This comes from http://coping.org/

I don't see a place to buy a book, but there is a lot of information on the site.

[StandingStrong]

I noticed some time back that I am one of those people - that has always felt the need to fix things for everyone.
I have learned to take a "hands off" approach and I've noticed that I am no longer carrying everyone else's stress for them. I can empathasize and sympathasize but their problems and issues aren't mine to own.
Anyways..just wanted to respond to this post as I, too, am a recovering "fixer".

[smutlydog]

I was one of those people many years ago until I took custody of 3 year old ADHD child. His mother was an addict. This child left me with no energy to help any one. Now that I am older I look at things a little more objectively.

If you had heart problems you wouldn't go to a mechanic for help. In other words people on drugs or alcohol don't need you. What they really need is professional help.

If you are one of those people who have unexplainable desire help or change someone that you are intimately in love with then that's something a little different.
If you are a female that had a bad relationship with your father or a male that had a bad relationship with your mother you may be unconsciously trying to fix your bad relationship with your parent through your significant other.

[reikihelps]

Interesting. Just went through some surgery and I found myself wanting to caretake all those around me. Fergawdsake. Didn't know I was that bad.

[Kassie2]

Dear azt,

i think the way to know the difference in helping is this: are you doing something they can do for themselves. Also, if you pay close attention to where in your body you feel the need to help ie, you can tell the difference between conflict that someone isn't do what you think is best for them vs a heartfelt lighter feeling to help.

[Kassie2]

I am going to refer to this post often to remind me of what I am doing vs what I might need to do for myself.

[MissFixit]

Hi Kassie,

Good bump. I definitely fit the bill.

This post is from 2006.

Miss

[sandrawg]

I think you kinda hit on something here...maybe some of us were not classically "codependent" before entering into a relationship w/an alcoholic, and you could be right that in the beginning, the magnitude of the problem hasn't yet dawned on us. So, we just "try to help".

But after awhile, we get this nagging sense that we're futilely trying to pull a drowning person to shore who doesn't want to go. When we continue this pulling past the point when a rational person would just, give up, is when we enter the realm of true codependency. That's when it's dangerous-because our desire to "save" the person starts to subsume our own self-protection mechanisms.

We end up risking our own health, livelihoods, sanity, and peace - and for what?? No joy or reward comes of it...just the day in, day out, the crazy chaos of life with an alcoholic, which we eventually start to accept as "normal", becomes our fate. That's true codependency.

Originally Posted by deax

I understand the gist of what all of this is saying. I see how I myself am guilty of this, and need to start doing a lot of hard work on myself. I know that on the Emotional Hooks Self-Assessment I have about 14 of the 20 issues listed. I get it and I accept it and I am working on it. With that said....


I'm sorry but to some degree, I take issue with this. If you're in a relationship with an addict, and you find out the extent of the situation over time, I think the NORMAL thing most people would do is jump in and try to help the person they love to get better. I don't necessarily believe this is self-centered, I think it's natural. I do think it's kind. And no 'normal' person would want to be in a relationship burdened by addictions and al that entails, so desperately seeking ways to eliminate that problem and make the relationship and your partner healthier IS the way things "should be"!

I understand the problem is the extent to which people take their need to help the other, and I know I made my boyfriend's problems mine and was completely enmeshed. I'm guilty of that. However, on occasion, some of this stuff sounds a little hokey to me. I don't think I was being selfish, I think I was trying to help the only way I knew how, until I ran into a wall enough times to learn that nothing I could say or do would work.

I by no means intended to negate the ideas in this post, there's a lot of truth and wisdom there. ANd I know we're supposed to take what we need and leave the rest. But the above point is a little hard for me to swallow in that it seems so unfair to people with good intentions.

[sandrawg]

And...are you doing it for THEM? Or for yourself?

Someone on this forum once said "when I say it once, it's for you. When I keep saying it, it's for me."

Originally Posted by Kassie2

Dear azt,

i think the way to know the difference in helping is this: are you doing something they can do for themselves. Also, if you pay close attention to where in your body you feel the need to help ie, you can tell the difference between conflict that someone isn't do what you think is best for them vs a heartfelt lighter feeling to help.