scripttraumasurvivors:

There’s a theory out there about the kind of supporters in someone’s life after something bad happens.

I vaguely feel like there might be a third category, but it is not coming to me right now-

but there were two main ones. I spent a lot of time talking about those two.

Builders and firefighters.

Firefighters are people who are really good at 3 am phone calls. At ‘I dropped everything and now I’m here.’ The ones who stay in hospitals with a person. They are pretty good at keeping their heads in immediate crisis.

They are not good at the long term. Some firefighters know exactly what they are, they’re able to set boundaries later on once things have cooled down a bit. They know how to not completely over extend themselves. Some aren’t very self aware, they have a long history of burned bridges because they offered All This Support, never put a limit on how long it would be on the table- and then got resentful of the other person for taking advantage of them.

Builders are not the immediate crisis types. Some of them struggle with listening to a person in distress at all. But what they are really good at is the long game. Builders are people who feel more comfortable giving longer term, but less intense support. You need someone to take you to therapy twice a month? That’s more their alley than picking up the phone when a person in crisis calls at 2 am. They’re also typically better at problem solving- these are the kinds of people that hear ‘I’m so stressed out because I missed work and I won’t be able to put food on the table this week’ and start suggesting or looking into food pantries. They’d rather help a person network and find several places to get their needs met, than present themselves as ‘here I am your last bastion against society.’

They often have burned bridges for that reason too. Sometimes when people are in a dark hole, if the only person they reach out to is a builder- they can get the vibe that the builder doesn’t actually care. It usually isn’t true, but the media doesn’t do a very good job of showing different ways people care- it’s a whole lot of all or nothing. Also, sometimes builders are Pushy. They think they have all the answers, and if the person in crisis would just take the advice/the resource they gave them- everything would be better.

There is not one style that is better than the other and like with anything, people can have traits from both- though they tend to lean toward one side. And more than that, I found in talking to supporters- figuring out what kind of support they were *good* at, that they were comfortable giving, helped them set boundaries around the things they weren’t good at and become healthier and less prone to resentment.

The builder vs firefighter dynamic is something to consider when thinking about your collection of characters.  How do your characters react in a crisis? Are they builders? Are they firefighters? What does this help? Does it cause any friction? Are there mismatched needs vs support available?