Rescue Fantasy

I don't have one. Truly, I don't. I never have.

I think, while growing up, that my mother's hard-core judgmentalism always somehow outweighed my father's abusive tendencies. I was emotionally abused by both parents, and frightened by my father, but the latter was always stopped in his tracks when he tended toward sexual abuse. For instance: At age 12, I was sunbathing in the backyard. My father came outside to join me. He then suggested that I take off my bikini top. I didn't feel comfortable doing so, and refused. He then went on a tirade that involved making me take down every single Bay City Rollers poster on my bedroom wall. Emotionally traumatic, but, as I always did, I immediately told my mother when she got home. I "got to" put the posters back up a day or so later. And my father never suggested such a thing again. (They divorced later that same year, so I luckily got to avoid any further sexual suggestions on his part.)

That said... Was my "telling" a "rescue fantasy"? I guess it could have been. But I also had a firm belief in the power of telling "authorities" and thinking things would then turn out OK. I didn't have to fantasize because, while I was often under great mental stress at home, I also had a sort of outward structure: My mother was never going to let anything TOO bad happen. (At the very end of their marriage, that year, my father finally pulled a gun on my mother after she wouldn't go in the bedroom with him after he'd come from drinking. He chased her outside and shot at her a couple of times. That was the worst I'd ever seen. I was relieved to discover that THAT was, indeed, the very last straw for her --- she then filed for divorce.)

So that's me. A shitty, violent dad; a mother drawing lines only after it came down to truly horrible stuff. I survived it. And I'm glad for the line-drawing. 99% of my adult life, I've been self-sufficient.

I do have a question, though, about someone that I've known for about 9 years now. When I met her online in '08, she had just lost 18 years of child support, was then being supported by an older Sugar Daddy. When he was declared senile by his children, she lost her sponsored apartment and was forced to beg relatives/friends for support. One old family friend paid her rent for year; after that, a fellow AA member gave her a spot on his couch. Even that is now about to end.

Now, this woman was raised rich; her father died early, her mother lost his money to vultures... I think she has a perpetual Rescue Fantasy.

I've tried to help her, for years, to get a job: Working up a resume for her, sending job notices that I found online, explaining how easy it was to get a simple, cushy part-time job with the state... No desire at all for any self-help. She'd prefer to sleep on someone else's couch rather than work for even a one-room place of her own.

She's nearing 60. At what point does the "Rescue Fantasy" end? Of course, it doesn't. Even when speaking to her a couple of weeks ago, she joked about a "Russian" rescuing her from her financial plight. (That wealthy Russian oligarchs might prefer 30-ish nubile young women to a 60-year-old didn't seem to deter her.)

Me in this equation: I care about her, but my idea of "rescuing" is offering a room for a few months and helping with a job search. Not sexy. Not the stuff of fantasy. Our internal needs don't intersect at all.