Jellyfish

There was a story I heard once that went a little something like this…

One day, two people were walking along the ocean shore when they came upon a beached jellyfish. Person one was immediately filled with concern and compassion. Searching for and finding a stick they began the tedious process of gently guiding the jellyfish safely back into the ocean. 

Person two stood by watching in silence. 

Once the task had been completed the two resumed their walk. Within a few steps they came upon yet another beached jellyfish. 

“Oh my.” Person one declared out loud. Then began the same tedious process again of returning this poor helpless jellyfish back into the safety of its ocean home.

Person two scoffed, shaking their head but still saying nothing.

Once complete the two again resumed their walk. Within even fewer steps, there sprawled out on the sand was yet another jellyfish!

“What the heck is going on?” Person one sighed with a concerned and heavy heart.

“Look.” Person two said as they nudged person one with their elbow.

Person one looked up from the jellyfish and followed the direction of person two’s gaze.

“Gasp!” Person one sharply sucked in their breath, placing their hand over the mouth. “Oh no, what the heck is going on?! This is terrible!”

The view before them was an endlessly long stretch of beach that was littered with jellyfish. All motionless, unable to get themselves back into the water with little hope of lasting until the hightide came back in.

Person one quickly went to work, using their now highly effective tool to get the closest jellyfish back into the ocean. Once complete they then moved onto the next and then the next.

Person two looked on in utter disbelief and pity for their friend. “What exactly do you think you are doing? There is no way you are going to be able to save them all.” They called out gruffly.

“That might be so,” person one called back, “but to those that I do return to the ocean it will mean the world.”

———————-

When I first heard this story I must have been either in my teenage years or early college. It was definitely in the setting of the Christian church and it was being shared within the framework of some powerful and moving sermon. 

It brought me to tears.

“Yes!” I thought to myself, “This is so true!” 

At the time it helped in giving me perspective on the issue at hand which was a hurt and broken world that was desperately in need of saving.

This was the birth of my Savior Complex.

It wasn’t all negative, having functioned in part as the fuel that motivated me in getting to the point that I am at in my career today. However, it has also played a significant role in the reinforcing of belief systems that ultimately drove me into burnout.

Twice.

I have recently come to discover that the central belief to this ultimately toxic system has been a double edged sword. One that has both sharpened as well as wounded me. This belief has been constellated as such: “I am obligated and responsible to help all that are in need.”

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have the weight of the world on your shoulders?

Well this is it.

My first job as a social worker (MSW) was doing Therapeutic Behavioral Services (TBS), which is a home based service that helps children and their parents on better managing and eliminating severely disruptive behaviors. Much of my work experience up to that point had prepared me well for the task at hand. For seven years prior I had been responsible for the caretaking of traumatized teenagers within residential and institutional settings. If that is not the definition of behavior management I don’t know what is!

However, this was much different in ways that I was not prepared for. Working directly with parents is a sensitive and fragile dance. Especially when you are a 28 year old fresh out of grad school and have never had children yourself.

Anyways, long story short this experience humbled the shit out of me. It also initiated the deconstruction process of my Savior Complex. A complex, which by the way, had also functioned as a defense mechanism; protecting my insecure and fragile ego that felt incapable of fixing the things that I perceived as being broken within myself and my family. Let me be clear, I was wholly unaware of ALL of this at the time and it has only been recently that much of this material has begun to seep into my conscious mind.

After doing that position for about one year I moved into a different program in which I did intensive case management and therapy for juveniles on probation that also had a moderate to severe mental health disorder. So awesome and so exhausting. 

Initiating further deterioration of the Savior Complex.

It was while doing this job that I experienced my first burnout. To be fair it wasn’t just my job that had burned me out though, it was everything in my life at that time which included a severe mental health crisis of a sibling and living with a narcissist. All beached jellyfish that I was desperately trying to get back into the ocean at all cost. What I didn’t know it was costing was myself.

Fast forward to this time last year when I hit burnout again. This time was a little different. Different life stressors in similar but different domains. Namely the highly traumatized system I work in, the crisis of my daughter’s father ,and raising a one year old as a single parent. I felt like I had NO time or space for myself to tend to my own needs and to address the build up of crap internally that was desperately needing to be felt, processed, and released. 

While I had made so much progress from who I was at the end of my first burnout, unbeknownst to me there were still residues of belief systems and complexes that were inhibiting me from walking away from the jellyfish.

I remember very clearly sitting in a meeting one day and a colleague of mine basically calling me out on this. He was worried about me and wanted me to see that I could not carry it all and that I needed to stop. My response was to tell him the story that I shared above. I explained to him that I understood I couldn’t save them all nor was that my mission but rather it felt like a betrayal to myself and my purpose on this earth if I didn’t give it my best effort. I had been directly involved in the return of many jellyfish to the ocean at this point in my life. For most of them it had meant the world.

Enter the Death of my Savior Complex.

A few short months after this conversation, I aggressively came to the realization that if I kept sacrificing myself for the sake of the greater good (my client’s, my child, my baby daddy) that I would wither up and die right alongside those stranded jellyfish. And if that happened all those other jellyfish, who could have been helped by my tools, would also wither and die.

I cannot save them all. I will not save them all. 

This was a moment of devastation. Not for the strangers that still lie far off in the distance, way down the beach but for MY jellyfish that lie directly at my feet.

This was a moment of defeat. That no matter how deep my compassion and concern goes for all the hurt and struggling people in the world, many of them will not make it back to the ocean.

I am sitting in this moment in a new and deeply needed realization. An additional perspective and truth to the jellyfish story. One that I was only able to come to by allowing these belief systems to die and giving myself the same compassion, love, and self-care that I give my child and my clients. 

It is this…

It is Okay if the jellyfish dies. For they have always and will always be in the Creator’s hands.