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Setting Limits to Caregiving
If we feel needy and deprived because we
have an insecure internal attachment to our early mother
then it is hard to say “no” or “enough” to somebody
else. People who have difficulty saying “no” often get
angry at people who ask them for anything. After all,
asking them for something sets off their conflict. Thus,
setting limits with needy elderly parents can be
extremely difficult if we are needy ourselves—which we
usually are if we had needy parents. We vacillate back
and forth between identifying with their neediness and
feeling we have to save them; and feeling angry at them
for needing so much from us and wanting to run away so
that we do not drown. Adults with a secure attachment do
not feel “needy”—or are able to work their way out of
that feeling fairly quickly. They have needs, of course,
but they are not “needy.” The feeling of being needy is
a feeling of desperation for someone else to save you
and to provide sustenance. In addition, it easily gets
projected on to other people so it’s had to stay clearly
separate. Caregivers who have an internal sense of
secure attachment have secure boundaries and have less
difficulty saying “no” or “enough” in a way that does
not necessitate hitting the other person over the head
with it or running away from a person who is needy. They
can say: “I wish I was able to do that for you, but
unfortunately I’m not.” But that does not come naturally
for many of us. We have to remind ourselves that when we
confront an ocean of need, all we need to do is bring a
cup.
Roberta Satow is Chairperson of
the Department of Sociology at Brooklyn College and a
practicing psychotherapist in New York City. She has
written numerous articles on sociological and
psychoanalytic subjects that have appeared in numerous
journals and magazines such as Partisan Review and
Psychology Today. This article is an excerpt from her
new book: Doing the Right Thing: Taking Care of Your
Elderly Parents Even if They Didn’t Take Care of You
(Jeremy Tarcher Publishers,2005).
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