I've been helping a friend, and now I have to ask myself the question, "When does Helping Become Enabling?" As a therapist the answer was very simple. Anytime you are working harder than the person you are trying to help, you are enabling them. I think that is still true and I need to remember those words, and remember that I have no control over the choices other people make; just over the ones I make. I choose who is a part of my life. I choose what I subject myself to and what I do not.

I have to make those choices now, and it is not as hard as I thought. I can't make a sick person take their medicine, go to the doctor, eat right, or take a bath. That does not mean that I have to watch someone destroy themselves.

A while back I dated a very nice man who was diabetic. Oh, this man was such a dear, but he did not take care of himself. He ate all of the wrong things and often did not take his medicine as prescribed. His diabetes got so bad that he was loosing his sight and he had sores that refused to heal. After the surgeries to clean away the dead tissues he would watch his diet and take his meds only for a little while, then it was back to eating sweets and skipping doses of his insulin. I loved him dearly but I broke it off with him. I could not subject myself to watching him kill himself. All of the begging and pleading in the world did no good at all.

The situation I am in now parallels that one a great deal. I think I know what I have to do: get out of the firing range before I get hit again.