Sharon’s story illustrates a version of this. Sharon is a divorced single mother of three and a doctor working full time in a large public hospital. She told me that up until recently, she had continuously loaded herself up with responsibilities, always putting everyone else’s needs first and her own last. As far back as she could remember, she was always 
responding to what she felt were the needs and expectations of those around her – even if not asked to. She did this at work, where she carried a much bigger workload than most of the other doctors. But she also did this in her personal life at home and with her friends.
Several years ago she was starting to feel exhausted, and a bit depressed and resentful – and she found herself asking the question: why do I do this to myself? Unexpectedly and quite suddenly the answer came one day when Sharon and her kid’s were visiting Sharon’s morose and moody mother. Sharon’s parents divorced when she was eight years old, and from that time on Sharon’s mother became depressed and moody. This frightened Sharon – an only child – and she began to try and anticipate her mother’s moods and needs and what she could do to make her feel better. In this way Sharon learned to ignore her own needs and increasingly focussed only on trying to help her mother. What Sharon realised at that moment was that as she grew up, she had generalised that habit into focussing almost exclusively on the needs and desires of everyone around her – and never her own!
