Hi there!
It's been a while since I last posted - spring has brought a whole new set of distractions! One good thing - classes are over for the semester, and I can catch my breath. WHEW!
Well, I'm really feeling ragged today. You know that old saying, 'no good deed goes unpunished'? Well, I can attest that it's true after the last 13 days I've had, dealing with someone I tried to help.
I got taken advantage of again - or to be more precise, I got taken in, and let myself be taken advantage of. I put my family at risk, because I felt sorry for someone who was looking for an easy mark. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!!!
Now I'm in the place I'm in emotionally, not so much because I've been taken advantage of to the point of pain again and upset my family, but rather, because I allowed it to happen - I didn't take the responsibility to draw the line, and when I got sucked in emotionally, I didn't take the responsibility to calm down, assess the situation, and respond intelligently or like an adult fully in charge of her life, until the situation became threatening, anyway.
I did, finally, call a halt, last night, when the individual started pounding on my door and ringing the doorbell at 2 a.m with a most pitiful tale, wanting to spend the night in my home. This is someone I met first two weeks ago.
To gain access to us initially, the individual played, successfully, on one of my hot-buttons. The woman was going from door to door begging for help when I answered the doorbell. I'd never seen her before in my life. She said she had starving children at home (two blocks away) and was desperate to feed them. She said she could manage if she could just get a ride to a relative's house and back. I couldn't help but be moved to act and I gave her our Sunday dinner, also. But ...
It became a little like the fatal mistake in the vampire legends - once you let one cross your threshold, you're DOOMED. There is no peace, there is no keeping the parasite out, there is nothing it won't demand and no time of day it won't demand it. And folks, THIS ONE WAS A VAMPIRE.
I let this carry on and escalate for two more days before finally refusing to run, jump, or provide transportation on demand to run all over town on my dime any longer, or to give her money. I stopped answering the door if I saw it was her.
It finally stopped after a week, and I thought it was over - until last night, anyway. THIS TIME, I didn't open the door, and REFUSED to leave the house to give her a ride anywhere. ESPECIALLY after I noted immediately my outside lights were all out. Instead, I offered to call someone to help, and got the police and a social worker mobilized. When I passed that information along -wow - I've never seen anyone run so fast in my life (!). AHA MOMENT! PERSON RUNS FROM THE COPS = PERSON RUNNING A SCAM. DUH!
Anyway, I was feeling bad enough to need to write about this, but I found someone who did it better than I - let me refer you to another blog, linked to my title, above, and again here: "My Appreciation Blog: You can't Save the World", written by Katie Darden. Much thanks, Katie, for saying what I needed to hear, articulating what I'm feeling, and for having already gone through something similar and come out the other side. I feel a bit better, now.
I have struggled with the need to save the world all of my life, not recognizing - not acknowledging - that it's neither my duty, nor my calling, nor my place to take on that responsibility. I'm suffering, today, a guilt that isn't mine to assume. I hope no one else reading this is prone to this failing - if you are - don't beat yourself up. Remember: you can only lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink. If the horse dies of thirst, IT ISN'T YOUR FAULT. [Wish I would just internalize that ...]
Namaste.
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