Origins Of Over Nurturing

Origins Of Over Nurturing My need to protect others began during my turbulent adolescence. It started out as the need to protect others from me. This morphed into over nurturing everyone around me. Sometimes I felt like there were two of me residing together… similar to The Cherokee parable of The Two Wolves… vying for dominance. Peering into the bathroom triple door mirrors, I saw three images. On the left was the girl I knew before puberty, and the hurricane of hormones that invaded my body. On the right was a slightly out of focus woman I envisioned I'd become. I knew I would need to work hard to bring that woman into focus so she'd become my reality. In the middle I was caught in a kaleidoscope, transitioning and transforming into multiple versions of myself. Sometimes erratic twists into dark and ugly versions I abhorred and feared. I have no idea when or how… completely unaware that I found myself on the outside looking in… my nose pressed against the window pane… aghast at the wolves fighting to dominate my life and… terrified the bad wolf, gathering remnants of traumatic events, the raging hormonal dump, and the unknown maelstrom of mental illnesses, would win the battle. Behind the window pane I helplessly watched as I struggled to keep these “aliens” at bay, so as not to inflict them on anyone. Thus, the need to protect others began as the need to protect them from me and the bad wolf's influence. Nurturing is healthy, we allow people to forge their own path, make mistakes, fall down, get up, sometimes asking for a hand up or help. Over nurturing is unhealthy, people assume they must protect another person from themselves. It comes from a place of caring and love. It isn't malicious nor is it benign. Yet, people can love too much and over nurture to the point of subliminal control. That subliminal and invisible control leaves the recipient feeling disempowered, incompetent, smothered, and caught up in a state of dependence. I over nurtured my siblings after our parents divorce, and as a mother and grandmother. My late husband over nurtured me. It wasn't until yesterday did I make the connection with my simmering to boiling anger with my late husband. Now I have an understanding of my daughters' pushback as teenages and adults. If someone had asked me if I loved or nurtured so much that I robbed my daughters of their confidence and independence, I'd have protested absolutely not. Now, I have to sadly acknowledge I did.