self-help books boost survival

Ruth, 35, is in a very bad situation – being unemployed and caring for an ungrateful, tyrannical mother – and because she has no support in the community she survives by taking solace in the many self-help books and tapes she’s purchased over the years.

"From these books and tapes I’ve learned that there is no law that says a daughter has to sacrifice her life and her self-esteem for her mother," says Ruth, "and I am constantly feeding my soul with these positives in order to counteract the negatives I'm hearing from my mother, yet in my vulnerable moments I am still torn between listening to my inner guidance and listening to my mother and then I become wracked by guilt."

"I know that deep within me I do have the strength I need to take control of my life again,” confides Ruth. “I am not a child. I do not permit my mother or anyone else to take away my power and self-esteem. I do not have to tolerate negative behavior from anyone. I can leave my mother’s home any time I want to. I am not a prisoner, and my mother is not as incapacitated as she makes out she is."

“Listening to my mother nagging me to find another job had the effect of taking me back to my helpless childhood,” explains Ruth. “In a state of childlike regression, as I sank further into depression, my mother appeared to gain a strength I hadn’t seen in her for the fifteen years since I’d be working.”

“Self-help books and tapes are really helping me overcome this negative childhood socialization pattern - believing others know better than I do,” says Ruth, “and whenever I feel myself slipping into guilt, or rationalizing that my mother is not as bad as I intuitively know she is, I snap my fingers to wake me up!”

Read more of Ruth’s story:
suicidal caregiver
between job vulnerability
daughter raised to take care of mom
victimized then fired

do self-help books trump friends?

For all of her life Ruth, 35, has been dominated by a tyrannical mother – which whom she lives as a caregiver – and for the past fifteen years all of her social life was gained through her work, but she has no friends or community support and now that she has lost her job she relies more heavily than ever on self-help books for support, claiming that the authors of these books trump friends because they ‘give’ not ‘take’, and never victimize her as others have done.

“My mother always told me that I’m stupid and ugly and I should always defer to my betters – meaning her, particularly, of course,” says Ruth, “and I’ve never been able to make friends because I tend to arouse in others a desire to feed off my weakness – which is exactly what happened when my manager at work victimized me.”

“All of my life people have ‘taken’ from me without giving me any sort of acknowledgement,” says Ruth, “and I’ve learned from these books that unsupportive people like my mother have a vested interest in keeping victims like me in a state of helplessness.

“I can see how my mother and my ex-manager derive power from my vulnerability – the more I sink into misery, the higher they rise,” explains Ruth. “It’s as if people only get to know me because they want to hurt me in order to make themselves feel better.”

“The inappropriate childhood socialization my mother subjected me to has adversely affected my dealings with everyone,” confides Ruth. “In the past, whenever I’ve been in a vulnerable situation – meeting new people or dealing with an unexpected illness, a legal problem, a work problem or even some disaster on the home front – I’ve always tended to attract people who are least likely to help me, often causing me more heartache than the problem I had to start off with.”

“That’s the sort of people I attract and that’s why I have no friends,” explains Ruth. “I prefer to spend my time with the authors of good books, especially self-help books, because they give me all the spiritual nourishment I need and never victimize me.”

Read more of Ruth’s story:

suicidal caregiver
self-help books boost survival
between job vulnerability
daughter raised to take care of mom
victimized then fired