This One May Hit Home #addictionrecovery #addictionhelp #addictionawareness

24 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this spoken monologue, Amber Hollingsworth explains how the urge to rescue others often serves the rescuer’s own need to avoid witnessing another’s discomfort. She describes a feedback loop where one person’s anxiety amplifies the other’s, leading both to panic. When the rescuer steps in and “fixes” the situation, their nervous system learns to treat the other’s distress as an emergency that must be solved for the rescuer to feel okay. This conditioning can evolve into an obsessive‑compulsive‑like pattern, where the rescuer works harder on the other’s life than the person themselves, creating a brutal trap that undermines healthy boundaries and recovery.

Chapters

Sometimes rescuing is not primarily about protecting them from their discomfort. Sometimes it's about protecting us for having to watch them be uncomfortable. That's what's really going on. Their anxiety makes your anxiety worse, right? Their anxiety makes you anxious. They're panicking, and now you're panicking because they're panicking. You can't sleep because they don't know what they're going to do. And then your brain realizes, I could fix this. And the second you fix this, it's like, ah, everybody can breathe again. But your nervous system learns when you do this, like you're training your nervous system that when they become distressed, I have to solve it in order for me to feel okay. That is a brutal trap that you do not want to get in. It almost turns into like an obsessive compulsive thing because now their discomfort becomes your emergency. And it's not going to take long before you're working harder on their life than they are.