Chapter 12
Love Sick and Patent Medicine

When someone we care about is hurting, our instinct is to fix them. But here's the pattern: the more desperate we become to help, the more likely we are to cause additional harm. Tom's heartbreak over Becky is real and painful. Aunt Polly's love for Tom is genuine. Yet her increasingly extreme 'cures' become a form of torture, while Tom's own attempts to manage the situation create chaos. This happens because panic makes us escalate. When the first solution doesn't work, we don't step back and reassess—we double down. Aunt Polly moves from cold water to scalding baths to liquid fire medicine. Each failure convinces her she needs something stronger, not something different. Meanwhile, Tom's desperation to avoid the medicine leads him to schemes that backfire spectacularly. Both are trapped in a cycle where good intentions fuel increasingly bad decisions. You see this everywhere today. Parents whose anxiety about their teenager's grades leads to punishment that destroys the relationship. Managers who respond to team problems with more meetings, more oversight, more pressure—creating exactly the dysfunction they're trying to solve. Healthcare workers pushing themselves harder when they're already burned out, making mistakes that compound their stress. Spouses who try to 'fix' their partner's depression with advice, activities, and solutions that feel like attacks. The navigation key is recognizing when your help isn't helping. If your first three attempts haven't worked, the problem isn't that you need to try harder—it's that you need to try differently. Ask the person what they actually need. Sometimes the answer is 'nothing right now' or 'just listen.' Create space instead of pressure. Remember that your anxiety about their problem can become a bigger problem than their original issue. The most loving thing might be stepping back and letting them find their own way through. When you can name the pattern of misguided rescue, predict where it leads to burnout and resentment, and navigate it by offering space instead of solutions—that's amplified intelligence.