6 Ways To Become The Person Your Friends Open Up To, No Matter What They're Going Through
Becoming the person that others rely on is an inside job.
KrakenImages via Shutterstock Life is challenging enough without someone's struggles being exacerbated by the people around them. Simply put, the world is not always a friendly place. Fortunately, we can make the world friendlier and become the person friends feel safe talking to, no matter what.
Let's talk about things we do to make the world (and ourselves) a little friendlier to folks who are struggling. Making small adjustments can create space for people to exist without feeling stigmatized, and for the people around them to be better able to navigate when they want to offer emotional support to a friend who is suffering.
Here are 6 things that instantly make people feel more supported when they're feeling low:
1. Don’t use diagnoses as insults or punchlines
This is pretty easy. Stop using mental health diagnoses in the context of anything other than mental health diagnoses. Using the whole “crazy” family of insults sucks, yes, but there's more. I also want to close a loophole, people seem to be including armchair “diagnosing” as well.
Have you ever noticed people don’t take to social media to speculate about the mental health status of people they like and respect? That's because they know they intend armchair diagnoses as an insult. Calling someone a narcissist because they acted like a jerk or you don't get along only further stigmatizes perople who are struggling.
In a way, it is worse than the old “They are crazy,” because you are taking specific diagnoses that people around you may be living with and applying them to people whose actions you don’t like. Again, it’s never the likable people we have these conversations about.
2. Check your assumptions about laziness
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It broke my heart when I heard a close friend say they believe “writer’s block” is an excuse people use when they don’t want to try. They said it right at a moment when I was shoulders-deep in a depressive episode that had me feeling physically and mentally unable to produce any written content for the better part of a year. Seriously, I felt like the words were floating around my brain, and I just couldn’t get them out.
As a decade-long "depressionista" (thank you, Twitter followers, for giving me that term), I have faced down a lot of assumptions about my symptoms being an excuse to lie on my couch and rewatch Grey’s Anatomy again.
Let’s clear this up: The people in your life who are struggling have hopes, dreams, goals, and aspirations just like anyone else. No one sets out to see how much time they can spend paralyzed by their mind. So don’t decide everything that doesn’t look like work as you know it is "laziness."
Yes, everyone probably should be able to do all of the things, but not everyone can do all the things. Not because they are too hipster/lazy/uncool to learn, but because we all have different physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities, and that means we all have different things we can and can’t do, and that’s OK.
We can’t declare folks lazy for not being able to do stuff, no matter how useful it is, because we don’t know where they are coming from. Yes, even a friend we perceive as being of sound mind and body. Because you just don’t know.
3. Stop glorifying busyness
I can’t speak for all mental illnesses, but I know depression simultaneously frees up a bunch of time and fills your calendar. How so? Well, all of the crippling self-doubt and panic leaves little time for much else, even if that doesn’t look like a lot on paper.
One of the hardest parts of engaging with others when I’m experiencing a struggle in life is listening to folks out-busy each other as I sink deeper and deeper into my pit of inadequacy, because so much of my energy is focused on simply remembering to breathe in and out.
By all means, live your life, and if your life is frequently busy, that’s your business. But please, stop participating in the cult of busyness and buying into the notion that the person with the most packed calendar wins.
Whether it’s announcing all your weekends are booked up for the next 3 months (in any context other than “Let’s make weekend plans, when are you free?”) or casually slipping into a conversation that you always work 90-hour weeks (unless your employer is abusing your time, in which case, please tell people about that!), the “Look at how big my busy is!” boasting has to stop.
Not only is it obnoxious, but it sends the message that “not constantly busy” = loser/failure/lazy. This is detrimental to so many folks (it took me until my mid-30s to get OK with how often I want to stay in), and for folks with mental illnesses, it furthers the “you are broken and failing” narrative.
4. Check in when people screw up
The friend who is suddenly flaking on plans. The work colleague who has dropped the ball on a couple of projects. The family member who can’t seem to do anything right lately. Reach out to those folks.
We perceive these behaviors as “failing” and letting us down. We think people are willfully not doing what is being asked of them and wonder why they refuse to pull their weight. These people annoy us, make our lives harder than they need to be, and generally annoy off.
Here’s the thing, though: Depressive episodes already come with a general air of failure.
I become forgetful and easily confused. Everything takes a herculean effort. And even when I think I’m paying attention to detail, I get it very, very wrong. I miss deadlines, feel awful, start dodging emails, hiding, missing things I was supposed to be doing, hating myself, and generally making things worse.
All the while, people are getting angrier and more frustrated with me, and when they finally get hold of me, I receive a lecture about how I’ve let them down, caused them stress, and so on. Which, for me, makes everything worse, causing me to hide even further from people to avoid that lecture in the future.
I shudder to think about the ridiculously unfair distribution of labor between me and anyone who tries to work with me on projects during an episode.
After I screwed something up pretty badly, I came clean. It made things a bit easier for everyone involved.
These days, I try to be upfront with people so they know what’s going on and we can all be on the same page, but not everyone is there yet. So, when you see someone in your life start to go down the “screw up” slope, instead of painting them with the failure brush, check in with them and ask how they’re doing. They may be drowning and in need of a lifeline.
Just the act of letting them know that you see and hear them and support them where they are is huge for someone who has been doing the normal dance as fast as they can and in the process dropping all the balls all over the place.
5. Be aware of how much you ask of others
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Notice how much you ask of others and how you ask for it. This one is tricky because we should be able to lean on each other and ask for support, and as someone who came from an “avoid being a burden at all costs” background, I know how problematic it can be when you try desperately not to ask for anything ever.
That said, it never ceases to amaze me that I will be openly in a depressive episode and people will maintain a steady stream of requests and demands, each one ratcheting up the stress and making me want to shut down my email account and run away forever.
Our struggles lie to us and make us see and hear things differently than they are. When someone is struggling, they aren't only hearing what you are saying but, likely, a lot of other stuff like:
- You aren’t doing enough.
- I’m angry with you.
- My needs are more important than yours.
There’s no way you can know what’s going on in someone’s head, but also, you never know what’s going on in someone’s head, you know?
We tend to assume the default setting for humans is “doing awesome and ready for anything we throw at them!” and I’m not sure I think that’s a fair assumption to make about anyone ever. Generally, I’m opposed to pelting people (any people) with requests anyway, but when put in the context of “you never know what someone is coping with,” this seems especially relevant.
Consider the digest approach, and communicate everything in one message. Suddenly, a heavy pile of requests becomes one friendly message with a clear purpose rather than a non-stop barrage of emails that someone has to wade through to figure out all the (seemingly many) things you want. Or, do like my best friend does and check in to ask if people have the spoons for what you want/need from them right then, or if it should wait.
Finally, when you know someone is struggling and you want something from them that isn't urgent or work-related, I suggest — and I know this may be controversial — backing off. For example, any request that opens with, "Remember a while back you said...” is probably best saved for another time.
6. Be OK with people being not OK
We don’t often leave a lot of space for people to experience unpleasant feelings. We encourage positivity, fun, and smiles. We label sadness, anger, shame, and their friends as TMI, downers, or something folks “probably don’t want to talk about, right?" We don’t leave space for being "not OK" to just be normal.
These days, the only acceptable answers to “How are you?” are synonyms for good. Even saying “fine” will get you hit with a barrage of questions about why you aren’t more chipper. Rather than offering the support you need, people ask why you insist on bringing down the room.
Give friends the room to express when they aren't OK, and make it safe for them to ask for what they need. Remember that they may not need anything at that particular moment. They may just not be OK for a bit. It needn’t be a race to fix the “problem."
I always say that I’ve been through two bouts of crippling injury: one where I lived alone and one where I lived with a partner and, to the surprise of many, the one where I lived with a partner was way harder, because I had to deal with how he wanted me to feel/act/be. Living alone, I got to be where I was when I was there.
Consequently, I felt pretty OK mentally while I was injured alone, but sank into a depression so bad I needed my mother to come to stay with me when I was injured with a partner. And it all came down to it being OK with not being OK.
Let people be where they are. If they want to use humor to cope with their situation, let them! Don’t respond to their jokes with a sympathetic head tilt.
As long as they are safe, understand that they may not be “good," “OK,” or even “fine,” but they are where they are and they get to be there. Avoid the barrage of questions like, “Are you OK?” and “How are you?” These can make people want to peel their skin off in frustration.
If you are looking for a way to help, try asking, “How can I support you?” This one question creates room for options rather than backing your friend into an “I don’t know... pressure, pressure, pressure!” corner. They might not have an answer, but they know you are there, which is usually what people want to express with those other questions, even though it often presents the exact opposite perception.
If you or somebody that you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, there is a way to get help. Call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or text "HELLO" to 741741 to be connected with the Crisis Text Line.
JoEllen Notte is a writer, speaker, researcher, and author. She has been featured in The Daily Dot, AlterNet, Powell's Books Blog, and more.
