No One Is Coming To Save Us {EP 209}

Robyn: So I reached into my tabled for now topics and re-uploaded it into my podcast host. Actually, I re uploaded it into my recording software, and I'm recording this little interlude here and adding it into the episodes that I recorded many, many weeks ago now, let me be clear, we have completely abandoned our most vulnerable folks, our most vulnerable kids, our most vulnerable grown ups, our most vulnerable people. And by we, I mean our society. A long time ago, Marshall Lyles was on my podcast. He's one of my very best friends, and he speaks brilliantly on a lot of topics, but we were talking about ableism on that particular episode. And one of us, and honestly, I'm not even sure which one of us this was, I'd have to go back to check, and I didn't do that. One of us said something like, we are continually asking the most vulnerable folks with the least amount of power to make the biggest changes. We are doing that all over the place. For example, at schools, we're constantly asking our kids to be the ones who make the biggest changes. All right, that's just one example.    

Robyn: This bootstraps mentality that weaves itself through Western culture has gone very awry. Yeah, I can pull myself up by my bootstraps if I have some boots, then once I enjoy the privilege of those boots, my personal belief is that it is my obligation to get boots for everyone else. It is my personal value that those who hold the privilege and the money and the power are morally obligated to create supports for those who don't. We have an entire population of kids and families who have quite literally been abandoned. There is no treatment. There is no payment for that treatment. For many of the families I work with, what they need literally doesn't even exist, and not because it couldn't, but because no one is paying for it. So how do we do both? How do we come to terms with the fact that indeed, no one is coming to save you or me or anyone else, while also continuing to hold the expectation that we figure out a way to deal with the fact that we've completely abandoned a very vulnerable part of our population, and that is unacceptable.    

Robyn: And of course, those of you who are heavy in the muck, desperate for services figuring out how to get by hour by hour, you're not the ones to be out there doing the work to hold our leaders to a higher standard. That's what the rest of us do, the less vulnerable, which is, of course, completely subjective, but those of us with more power with less vulnerability, we're tasked with doing more work so that the most vulnerable don't have to add more stress to their plate. And while this is my belief, there is also reality, and the reality is that no one is coming to save me or you. So with that, let's go back into the episode I recorded a couple months ago.   

Robyn: I am taking a little risk here and recording a second episode of the year that isn't specifically about how to parent a child with a vulnerable nervous system and big, baffling behaviors. We will, of course, have many, many, many episodes about that throughout 2025 and I already have a huge backlog of episodes that are full of practical, implementable tools and ideas. But one of the rules I try to live by with my podcasting is to record episodes that feel exciting and inspiring to me. Those episodes tend to be the best ones, and they're certainly the most rewarding for me. And there is a you know piece of this process where the more I feel rewarded in the podcast that I make, the more podcasts I'm going to make. So I do try to pay attention to what is feeling really exciting to me, and this topic felt like something I really wanted to podcast about.    

Robyn: Y'all this might surprise you, maybe not, if you know me, but it might surprise you, that in basically every single aspect of my life except work. I really don't show up this way at work, but in all other aspects of my life, I really just want someone else to take care of me, like in my dream life, I would basically relinquish all of my agency and let someone else do everything, and this has been a constant theme in my entire therapy experience and healing, which has gone on for more than 20 years now, I have kind of an inner working model, a mental model that sounds a lot like, this is too hard and I can't do it. It's just kind of a way I move through the world, again in all aspects, except at work. But I also have an inner working model that sounds like the only way you can prove to me that you really love me is to abandon yourself and take complete care of me.   

Robyn: That's hard to say out loud, but you know, here on The Baffling Behavior show and in all of the work that I do, right? They're just grounded in all behavior makes sense, and I work really hard to apply that to myself. So even though it feels a little hard to admit that out loud, that I really just want people to abandon everything about themselves and give all of their energy to focus on taking complete care of me. I am going to admit that to you, and that that has been at the core of my ongoing therapeutic work. When I was newer to the therapy journey, I would have happily gone to therapy every single day of my life for hours. I wanted to be constantly cared for. Some people dread going to therapy. I'm like, No, could I move in? Like, literally, can I move in? I can't move in to your actual house. So could I move into your office? And I'd even joke with my therapist, joke in air quotes, that I was happy to really just sit in her waiting room and drink her tea, and she didn't necessarily have to even do anything for me, but I wanted to feel like I was being constantly cared for.    

Robyn: I basically wanted someone else to do all the work that would make me feel okay. And again, there's a little part of me that feels pretty ashamed to admit any of that, but there's also a part of me that knows, of course, that all behavior makes sense, and I can apply that to myself as well. So recently, like really recently, in the last couple sessions in therapy, we were once again rehashing the exact same issue. It comes out with a whole lot of different stories, right? There's constantly a new story to talk about, but ultimately it comes down to the exact same thing, over and over and over for a million times. We go round and round and round and round. And ultimately, the conclusion is, I just want them to do it for me. I just want them to relinquish everything about themselves and put all the attention on me and what my needs are. Sometimes this sounds something like I just can't is this all just way too hard? Somebody else is gonna have to do it for me.    

Robyn: There's something that I've been trying to master, I guess, for, yeah, 25 years now, something that is, quite frankly, creating a lot of havoc in my life and important relationships. I'm lucky that the people I'm in relationship with, intense, close, intimate relationship with, are pretty committed to me and have stuck with me through all of this, because I know a lot of other folks whose relationships would have totally blowed up over the things that I just really can't seem to conquer. So two sessions ago and I, at this point of my life, go to therapy with more intensity, but less frequently. So longer sessions, less frequently. Two sessions ago, after essentially playing out this exact same scenario again, we were getting to the point we were starting to wrap up, and I can't remember exactly what we were talking about or what prompted it, but I said, well, I'm gonna have to figure this out. I mean, no one's coming to save me, and it felt true, and it felt honest, and it didn't feel astounding or monumental or like noteworthy in any way. It just felt true, like a regular old normal thing, I would always say.    

Robyn: But about two seconds later, and maybe because of the look on my therapist's face, I had a pause, and I realized that what I said was actually both extremely astounding and monumental, that no one is coming to save me, and I wasn't pissed about it. It was just the truth. I wasn't feeling despair over it. It was just the truth no one is coming to save me, and it's not because they don't love me or wouldn't desperately tried to save me. It's simply just because they can't. I really can't be saved from myself. No one can shift this for me. No one can abandon themselves enough, change themselves, enough that I don't experience this thing that I don't want to experience basically all for my entire adult life, in some way, shape or form, I've been insisting that the people I'm in relationship would change. They change, and if they could change I'd be able to stop doing this thing that I'm doing that's harming the relationship. If they stop triggering me, if they change their tone, if they looked at me a little bit differently, if they maybe asked me with slightly different words, if they learned this very intricate song and dance routine and then executed it perfectly, then I would have enough safety that I'd be able to do what I needed to do, finally, to find safety.    

Robyn: And then the birds would sing, and the rainbows would pop out, and all my relationship difficulties would just melt away when they changed, when they changed, then I could. Now, to be clear, this isn't something like I walked around consciously, like thinking or believing. I wasn't constantly telling people, if you would just change, then I'll change. Right? And didn't. This wasn't always a conscious thought, and I wasn't always consciously acting it out. I was probably acting it out a lot more than I'd be comfortable admitting. But it wasn't the super conscious thought, but it was the deepest and most intimate and in the this, this most safe moments of my own personal therapy that I would finally kind of come back to this honesty with myself and realize I'm doing it again. I just want them to change. I just want them to abandon all parts of their selves and be what I need them to be. And then I'd experience deep grief over this, over the impossibility of it, over how hard I was working for it, and eventually, I've also learned, for the most part, to stop judging myself for it. Eventually, I kind of realized that even that, even that desperate attempt to get other people to abandon themselves and only focus on me, even that ,in the moment that I would do that, which is, of course, not all the time, and without question, over 25 years, the amount of time that I'm being led by that part of me is dramatically different, dramatically different. So, so, so different. But in the hardest moments, in my most vulnerable moments, in my most activated moments, in my moments in my window of tolerance, the smallest, I still fall back into it. And the truth is, is that in those moments, it's the best I can do.   

Robyn: And over the years, my therapist has held such implicit belief in me that my system would shift when it was ready. So I'd see this relationship pattern finally, finally, I was able to see this relationship pattern, a sad and hurtful of me and my relationships and and I'd feel grief and regret that another day, another month, another year, and my life passed without me being able to really fully stop this harmful pattern, really fully heal the belief in me that was causing this pattern really fully heal the old, old, old, big, big, big, big wounds that were underneath this very painful pattern.    

Robyn: Y'all, I'm starting to get old, and I'm getting old enough to grapple with my own mortality, and sometimes I'll shake my fist at the sky and wonder, Am I going to die this way? Am I going to die never having relieved myself of this burden that believes that in order for me to be okay, someone else has to completely abandon themselves and and turn themselves over to me, right? Or will I eventually just succumb to the grief when I realize how much time I've wasted holding onto this destructive pattern with such to your life and y'all, let me just say, as both a therapy client and as a previous therapist, the enormity of the grief, of realizing how much life has been wasted, being stuck in these old patterns, the enormity of that grief keeps people stuck in those old patterns. There's a sense that's almost always unconscious that if I kind of heal this thing, then the next piece, the grief of how much time I've lost will destroy me. And I actually believe that our kids can feel that truth too unconsciously.    

Robyn: I don't think many kids are developmentally capable of kind of putting words to something that some adults can put words to, which is, if I fully healed this, I'd have to come face to face with everything I've lost because of it and all the time that I can never get back where my life was kind of oriented around this, and the grief of that is more than I can bear. Adults can put their words to that. Kids don't typically put words to that. But I still believe that it's in the way. I still believe that it is part of what prevents kids from being able to do a, you know, full trauma healing. But anyway, I've actually gotten really sidetracked here. So y'all, generally speaking, I have a pretty strong Owl brain, right, even though I carry around some really deep things. Still, overall, I have a very strong Owl brain, and that means that I actually can see this belief that I have right, and I can even see that it is not based in reality, right. I also can see the way that people I'm in relationship with have changed. And sure that means that some of the tension, or the stress in our relationship has decreased because they've healed some things and changed some things, and I've healed some things and changed some things, right? I can objectively see all of this, right?    

Robyn: But being able to like use my Owl brain to see all of this. Has made me do the tiny last bit of work that I need to do with myself to also change this very destructive belief and relationship pattern of wanting somebody else desperately to just abandon themselves and only focus on me and my needs. It is a very destructive belief to hold in relationships for decades, literally for decades, I've been hollering that when other people will change and my stress level decreases, then I'll have the resources to change too. And without question, y'all, there is some truth in that. Change is easier when the stress isn't totally debilitating. Of course, that's why we look at ways to decrease the stress when what we're thinking about is how to ultimately heal and strengthen that stress response system. One of the things we have to do first is decrease the stress. So yeah, there's some truth to the fact that if other people will change how their behavior, I'll be less triggered, and I'll have a little bit more capacity for stress, and then I can do some of the hard work to change. Except I was basically just getting real cozy in my new reality that someone else has changed, and now I feel better. So I was really reaping the benefits of that part, but not really doing my part of the bargain. And that's basically all I've wanted my whole life, for someone else to do everything and me benefit from it and feel cozy and loved and safe.    

Robyn: Now this isn't unique to me. All humans really, at our core, really want that and over the course of development, and what happens when kids develop secure relationship is essentially they come to terms with the fact that that's not actually possible, and that's kind of crummy, but also it's okay, because if that actually was possible, life wouldn't be terribly relationally rich. Now, of course, kids aren't really thinking all that kind of stuff through, but that is essentially a byproduct of having a lot of experiences and secure attachment. So it's not that strange that this is something I desperately wanted, but it's really not a belief that serves an adult very well. So I was all cozy in the fact that other people were changing, and therefore my personal nervous system felt better, but I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain. I wasn't then doing the work that I needed to do to contribute to the mutuality of the relationship. Now again, let me be clear, this isn't a description of the totality of my life in any stretch of the imagination. Over the years, the moments of my life that this would, accurately describe have decreased significantly, significantly, significantly, thankfully, but they still, you know, rear their ugly head every now and again, and it was still having negative impact on relationship, right? Sure, there was less stress that was mostly because someone else had changed. Now, not exclusively, I've certainly changed in many, many, many ways and contributed to, you know, the health and growth of my relationships. But I'm thinking about one very specific challenge, one very, very, very specific one. And I would I've been really holding on for dear life that I'm not gonna have to be the one that changes in that way.    

Robyn: My Owl brain says, of course, I know I need to change too. Of course, I know this isn't reasonable. Of course, I know that it can't be all the other person's responsibility, you know, to do all the work for this little this piece that's hard, right? My Owl brain knows all that. But yeah, there was a part of me that was still holding on to, I need this other person to abandon themselves and change everything so that I can be okay, right? And y'all that has negative impact on relationship, right? There's just no way around that, right? And most importantly, right, the hurting that I was carrying around in my own memory networks and my own nervous system, right? The thing that was causing me this difficulty that hadn't changed or healed or soothed, it was just being triggered less, and I really, really, really wanted for that part of me to feel soothed. If that part of me was able to integrate, I wouldn't hold the belief that someone else needed to abandon themselves in order for me to be okay. And I think there was a part of me that really believed that would- that part of me would just magically change. I wouldn't have to do any work on it if somebody else changed, right? But it didn't happen. I didn't magically change because someone else did. I didn't wake up one day with a spontaneous desire to change because now I had enough safety to do it. Nope, that absolutely did not happen. Sometimes I was even mad that the people that I was in relationship with weren't putting more pressure on me to change.    

Robyn: Like, sometimes I actually wanted these people to, like, threaten to bail on the relationship. I was like, I need more pressure. I need to be more afraid. In some ways, I was mad that they were so good to me and so safe because there wasn't enough external pressure for me to do the hard work I needed to do to equally contribute to the relationship. But y'all, there's a pattern here, even in that belief, I still got to place the blame on someone else. And there is some truth to the fact that we need some stress in order to change. There is absolutely some truth to that. But I wanted somebody else to give me stress. It wasn't enough for me to stress myself and say, Hey, enough of this. It's time to do something different. I wanted somebody else to stress me. I wanted someone else to blame to the point where I was mad that the relationship was so safe. Now I can step back from all of this and even with a bit of delight, see how my inner parts have worked so hard have done so many gymnastics to keep me safe.   

Robyn: They have held on so long to what they believed would fix everything that if someone else was perfect enough or did exactly everything right and exactly everything I wanted them to do, and completely abandoned themselves to that be exactly what I needed to be, then I would know for sure that they loved me and I was good and I existed. But the reality is that no amount of perfection in a relationship will ever change the hurts from my past that led me to want that so desperately, the past will always be true. There is no time machine. I cannot go back. And I've kicked and screamed against that and protested against that truth for basically 45 years, and I believed that my therapist could be perfect enough that she could save me, and I believed that my husband could be perfect enough that he could save me and my friends and y'all, no one is coming to save me.    

Robyn: Why am I giving you all of this very personal, intimate information? Well, it felt really profound. It was profound for me, and I wondered if that experience that I had could help anyone. And I think a part of me wondered if podcasting about this was the exact wrong thing to do, because people need to shift spontaneously in order for it to be really impactful, right? Like hearing me say, y'all, no one is coming to save me or you is unlikely to give you, even if you need one, a really impactful spontaneous shift, because it just doesn't really work that way, right? But ultimately, what I decided is that even if there's just one of you listening, and just one of you that notices that you two are desperately waiting for someone else to save you, that this episode will be worth it, because now you're able to give words to it, and now you'll be able to have compassion for yourself. Now you'll be able to go, Oh, that makes so much sense, right? Maybe in some ways, you're actually even waiting for me to save you. Maybe you're hoping that if you listen enough, you'll stop being triggered by your kids, you'll strengthen your psychological boundaries so much that you'll parent with your Owl brain most of the time.    

Robyn: And the truth is, is that I bet listening and doing all the other things that you do to try to be the parent you want to be, I bet those things are helping I am helping you. My therapist helped me. Helps me. Some days I'm pretty confident that she saved my life, like she made it possible for me to feel alive. That is true, but there also came a point where I had to buckle up and do the work. And I did, but I also still kicked and screamed about it. I was still so so so, so mad. And I think in a way, I was still holding onto the hope that if I did therapy good enough, my reward would be that someone else would save me. I was just so desperate for others to prove to me that they loved me and that I was good, and the way that they could prove that to me was to abandon themselves and relinquish themselves, turn themselves over to the job of being perfect and showing me I was lovable. Now, my Owl brain saw me doing this. My Owl brain saw me doing this so clearly, but my Owl brain could not stop me from doing this. But then something happened, something shifted, Something opened, something that made it feel so clear and so true and so just honest and unremarkable and not a news flash, right, just a truth like gravity, that no one's coming to save me, and also that that's okay.   

Robyn: So after I said that to my therapist, after it just felt true and normal and completely unremarkable, we both noticed together that it was, in fact, extremely remarkable that that felt true to me, maybe something, something in that moment tips the felt safety scale and made it possible for my beliefs about the world to change, for my memory to reconsolidate, for me to find the truth that no one can abandon themselves enough for them to prove to me that I am okay and good and lovable and that that's okay, because that's not what would prove that anyway. I wish I could tell you that again, like the skies opened up and the birds flew out and glitter exploded, and there was rainbows everywhere, and everything has been good and perfect in my life ever since. I wish I could tell you that, but that is not true, but I have noticed small things since then, small things that are actually huge things. Y'all, no one is coming to save me or you, and that's okay. And as desperately as I've wanted for someone else to save me, how good it would feel. I also know that that that actually is just imaginary, the feeling that I'm craving, if it does exist and and I guess it might, it won't, come from someone else, finally saving me from myself.    

Robyn: This means y'all that I can maybe stop setting all my most important relationships up to fail. I can participate in those relationships with more mutuality. I can hold myself accountable. I can stop abandoning myself in hopes that other people will abandon themselves for me, I can maybe just be me, flawed, obnoxious, imperfect, annoying me, and that me is good and lovable, and that you is good and lovable too. No one's coming to save us y'all, no one's coming to save us. And I am simultaneously so angry about that and also so relieved about that, because if that actually could have happened, what I'd hoped would happen as a result of it would not happen anyway.    

Robyn: All right, we're wrapping up. This is the second episode where I've spent a lot of time talking about myself, so the next episode will be kind of back to Baffling Behavior Show as usual. But I am suspecting I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I am suspecting that as this year unfolds, that we might see a little more of this, you might feel a little more of this flavor here on the podcast. We'll see. We'll see what happens. So thank you. Thank you for witnessing me. Thank you for after four years, the felt safety for me has increased that I can show up for you in this way and for those of you who find this kind of exploration helpful, I'm really glad. I'm really glad I can show up for you in this way, if you are new to The Baffling Behavior Show, I promise you, most of the episodes are full of practical, implementable ideas and tips that you can use in your family, in your relationship with your child with baffling behaviors and a vulnerable Nervous System. You can go to my website, RobynGobbel.com/podcast, there's a search bar. You can search for what you're looking for, if I have an episode about that, it will tell you. It will tell you the episode number. Then you can come back here to your podcast app, and you can search for, you can scroll, you can scroll to, you'll find that number.    

Robyn: Unfortunately, podcast apps themselves are not terribly searchable, so you have to go to my website, search for what you're looking for, get the number of the episode. Come back here and scroll to find that numbered episode. The episodes are in numerical order and labeled very clearly. My website is overflowing with free resources. I've got more than I'm preparing to add, so check out RobynGobbel.com and if you haven't read or ordered or borrowed from the library, Raising Kids With Big Baffling Behaviors, maybe that is the next step for you. Alrighty. Y'all, I will see you back here next week for another episode of The Baffling Behavior Show!