Martyrdom
Posted By: Wispyspirit on 2006-04-01
In Reply to: your life - tl
My best friend took care of her sick mother for years before she passed away three years ago. She is now the live in housekeeper and nurse for her father who has Alzheimer's. She calls me all the time to vent about how she has to work a full-time job and then comes home to work another full-time job. She also bitterly complains about how her two siblings do virtually nothing. As I told her, it is because she chooses to do it. It is her choice.
I don't know you at all, but I have known my friend for thirty years and can only offer my insight on my friend's own martyr complex. As I see it, there is a huge emotional payoff to assuming the role of the martyr. Her self-esteem is not very high, and martyrdom allows her to feel good about herself. She is the least successful of her siblings financially. She has never married and does not have a family of her own. By assuming the role of the martyr, in her own mind, she has elevated herself to be better than her siblings. Martyrdom keeps her so busy that she can't focus on her own life, and it is her excuse to not move forward in life.
Last year she came to stay with me for ten days and left a message for her siblings that they were now responsible for their father's care. She left them no way to reach her other than her cell phone number. While she was living with me, I helped her check out some nursing homes. She made an appointment for her father to be evaluated prior to his admission to a nursing home. Her siblings left numerous messages on her phone wanting to know when she was coming back. Assuming the full-time care of their father definitely interrupted their personal lives, and they did find it challenging. She never returned their calls, and it seemed to me that she liked the power she held over them while she was gone. She wanted them to acknowledge her sacrifice, and when she was finally satisfied that she had achieved the recognition that she craved, she went back home.
Her father was evaluated and deemed to be a candidate for a nursing home. Her siblings agreed with the evaluator and were not fighting the fact that he needed to go to a home. Guess what? She won't put him in a nursing home. She continues to be the caretaker and is still complaining.
I have been brutally blunt and confrontational with her to get her to examine her own behavior in this situation. It is ALL about the emotional payout and how this allows her to feel good about herself. It is also a salve that keeps her from focusing on her own issues and lack of initiative in life.
Try to be brutally honest with yourself as to why you have assumed this role. You wouldn't be doing it unless there was an emotional payout.
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