“My way was always being the caretaker, being needed, always coming to somebody’s rescue, a lot of the time to my own detriment,” she told me. “I never wanted to have conflict with anyone. And I always had to be in charge, making sure everything was okay.” Caroline had exhibited what has been called “superautonomous self-sufficiency,”[*] which means exactly what it sounds like: an exaggerated and outsize aversion to asking anything of anyone. A quick note: Nobody is born with such traits. They invariably stem from coping reactions to developmental trauma, beginning with self-abnegation in
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