Building Fences

I have been thinking a lot about enabling.  Enabling doesn't just happen because a person with an addiction is in your life.  Enabling happens other places, too.  I think anytime you don't confront what you are really thinking, the potential to enable is there.  For instance, if you are in a relationship that is abusive, and you finally come to that moment of clarity when you finally understand what is happening, but you do not change your behaviors, and the abuse continues, you have enabled that person to continue being an abuser to you.  I realized this awhile ago about myself. I lived that.  You are an enabler when you allow people to cross boundaries, no matter what type of boundaries, you enable them to continue wrong behaviors by not acting or saying something to halt those behaviors.  Not being able to say, "No," to requests is a form of enabling.  You enable people to turn to you, because you've made it easy for them by never saying no, and now, they don't have to think too hard if a project/favor arises, because you've enabled them to come to you. 

So what's the difference between enabling and helping?  I love doing things for people.  I don't do it for praise.  I don't do it for reward, I love doing things, or giving things to people for the joy of knowing I made someone happy or relieved or special.  A lot of the time, I do it anonymously.  Not just for my family, but for friends, and strangers.  If you have the spirit of something, I have the spirit of serving, and I can't help it.  It has only been an issue with me during a bad marriage and now, with my daughter's addiction.  For me, it's hard to filter out help with enabling.  I have had to readjust my boundaries and it's been difficult.  A complete change of direction for me, and very uncomfortable.  I started to feel isolated. In conversations with a friend who has her own experience with addicts, it was hard for me to explain myself because so much of myself had to change because of someone else's choices; my ex and then my daughter.  I went to AA meetings and heard people's stories and saw how they had enabled in their past, then had enough, and finally set their boundaries.  Good people, waiting patiently for me to see the light.  This is how I felt.  So, I started setting up boundaries. Different from the boundaries I already had in place, I had to tear them down, and build new fences.

I know that boundaries are necessary fences.  There have to be fences around at all times.  Boundaries are bad, however, if there are no gates to allow people in and since you are in charge of the gates, you decide who gets in and who doesn't.  That is a truth for me.

Enabling still sounds a lot like helping, though.  That's where I get into tricky territory.  Is all helping, enabling?  I don't think it is.  When I read other people's stories, there always seems to be such a sad doubting that is entwined around the words, or a dusting of anger when it comes to assisting their loved one.   If a stranger helps their loved one struggling with addiction, generally, that seems to be okay.  However, if they (we) help, it's enabling.  Each person's story has that shadow of wanting to help, but holding back, hoping and praying that a good Samaritan intervenes.  It makes my heart sad.  So, three years into this, and I'm still in my mental yard building fences and attaching gates.  It seems like such a maze, sometimes.  I find myself at a dead end, and attach a gate, but then end up in a wide open space, nervous and waiting, feeling very venerable. So, I start building, again.  I am not sure where this is going to take me, but at least it is giving me some type of path to pursue.  I'm still working on this.