This is self-work, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford.

At self-work, we discuss psychological and emotional issues and what you can do about them,

whether that's learning self-acceptance, taking action, or seeking therapy or treatment.

Eight years ago, I extended the walls of my practice to reach those of you who might already be knowledgeable about middle

health treatment, but also to those of you who might say, you'd never darken the door of a therapist.

And yet, you are here. I'll answer your questions while I invite you to take a few minutes for your

own self-work. But there's a big difference between needing to appear in tight emotional control,

which is one of the hallmarks of perfectly hidden depression, and what we're talking about today,

emotional martyrdom. I'll suffer for others. Someone who's perfectionistic

in a destructive way, who's camouflaged behind emotional armor, isn't playing the victim. In fact,

they're trying to avoid anyone catching on. Welcome to this week's edition of self-work.

Emotional martyrdom, what is it? And where does it come from? That's today's self-work episode.

Recently, I got a comment on the questionnaire blog post on perfectly hidden depression from a

woman whose every word convinced me that there are too many people in the world who believe

it's their job to keep everyone around

them happy. So today we're going to look at what's termed emotional martyrdom. This could be you

or someone you're in a relationship with. What it can sound like is it's my job to keep everybody

happy, whether or not I'm happy myself. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Or I'm not hungry. Y'all go on and eat what's

there and I'll see what's left. The listener email is a question from a woman who was overly enmeshed

with her own mom. She feels guilt for leaving and then seeing other members of the family becoming meshed.

And there's a recognition of repeating the same pattern with her own children, even though

she was aware of it. And she asked, should she overcompensate and try to fix it quickly or

...