Be That Person

            I have been thinking about Jan’s timely and important post.

Her discussion of suicide, risk factors, and warning signs is apt,

so I won’t belabor the point. I would, however, like to expand upon

her challenge to all of us. Jan challenged us to live with our eyes

open; to reach out. She astutely pointed out that one question or

small gesture could make all the difference. This reminds me of a

book I read by Kevin Hines, who survived jumping from the Golden

Gate Bridge. He shares his instant regret the moment he jumped. The

other thing that stood out to me is that he walked up and down the

foot path on the bridge for forty minutes in obvious distress. He

made a deal with himself that if one single person stopped to ask

if he was okay, he wouldn’t go through with it. Instead, a woman

stopped and asked him to take her picture, completely oblivious to

his despair. This experience illustrates the importance of keeping

our eyes open and getting out of our own world. As Jan challenged,

let’s notice those around us. It doesn’t take more than a few

seconds to ask someone if they’re okay.

I’m going to challenge you (and myself) further. Be willing to hear

the answer. Most people are conditioned to say they’re fine, and

maybe they are, but what if they’re not? What are you going to do if

they answer your question honestly? Show them you care by actively

listening and trying to understand or run for the hills in case

their negativity and “drama” rub off on you?

This brings me to the concept of social isolation. Social isolation

is a risk factor for suicide, as is mental illness. The problem is,

despite our awareness campaigns, well-intentioned postings of crisis

hotline numbers, and “Reach out for help, things get better”

platitudes (usually also well intentioned, I’m sure), mental illness

leads to social isolation. Let’s take depression, for instance.

I’ve noticed a disturbing misconception that depression is

contagious, like the flu or leprosy. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Sure,

other people’s moods can rub off on us. If someone is always crabby

you might notice your own irritability rising. But depression is not

a mood. On the contrary, it is a psychological disorder that

disables people from experiencing the full and typical range of

human emotion. Ignorance and fear of depression and other mental

illnesses may cause people to disengage from, avoid, or abandon

friends with these disorders, which is complicated by the fact that

often people withdraw when going through a depressive episode. Sure,

lack of energy has a lot to do with this; it’s exhausting to try to

act cheerful, fear you’ll bring others down, or feel like no one

could possibly understand.

Do we really wonder, then, why people are hesitant to “just reach

out”? Reach out to whom? When we’re too scared to have the tough

conversations, we allow stigma to persist and send a message

opposite to the one we have no trouble posting on Facebook. Saying

talk about it with the subtext “but not to me” does more harm than

good.

Listen, you don’t have to be a mental health professional. You don’t

need to fix your friend with mental health challenges. In fact, you

shouldn’t try. Maybe they do need a therapist, but they don’t need

you to fill that role. They just need you to stick around, even when

it’s not always fun. Even when it’s not always easy. Even when

they’re not a ray of sunshine. Is it easy to maintain a friendship

with someone with chronic mental illness? Not always. But just

because something’s not always easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do

it. I’m leaning heavily on my depression example because its what

I’m most familiar with, but you could substitute it for something

else. People with depression feel things more deeply. Sometimes that

intensity is off-putting, but it’s also real. This may not be the

friend who’s the life of the party, but they will be the first

friend there when you need a shoulder or a couch to cry on because,

hey, they get it.

Maybe people get freaked out when someone starts talking about tough

stuff such as mental illness, hopelessness, or suicide because

they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. As someone who’s been on

the other side of that conversation let me tell you that saying

nothing is worse than saying something. Ask the questions; sometimes

that makes all the difference. But go further than that. Be strong

enough to hear the answers. It’s okay if you don’t understand. It’s

okay to ask for clarification. But I’m challenging you to be the

friend who asks the questions and receives the answers with

compassion rather than anger, panic, or indifference. I’m

challenging you to be the friend who stays in a world where too many

people discard relationships the second they stop being fun. Be the

friend who stays. You might be the only one.

Now what if you have your own mental health challenges or you

already have a lot on your own plate and these conversations are

triggering for you? Am I saying you should just suck it up? No. You

need to take care of yourself and your own mental health. Setting

boundaries in relationships is healthy. Again, though, I’m going to

take it a step further. Your friend (I’m using friend for the

sake of clarity, but it could be any relationship) really needs to

feel like you care about them. Depression is really adept at

convincing you that no one cares anyway, so what’s the point? Prove

it wrong and show your friend you care by being there and being

honest. I promise you they can handle it.

People with mental illness are not fragile little flowers who blow

over in a strong wind. They deal with adversary every day within

their own minds. Respect them enough to be straight with them.

Saying, “I care about you and how you’re doing and I want to hang

out with you, but I can’t always hear/talk about

(depression/suicide/triggering topic) because it can be a trigger

for me. However, I can come over and bring you a coffee/hang out

with you/just be here. I want to know what’s going on in your life

and how you’re doing, but let’s have our friendship be about other

stuff too," will hurt them way less than your “I’ve just been super

busy” excuses or ghosting. Their jerk-brain will run with that and

make them ruminate about what they could’ve done wrong and how no

one wants to be around them, etc. Don’t insult their intelligence by

making excuses for your absence and don’t insult their strength by

deciding for them that they can’t handle honesty.

Obviously, the quote I wrote above is a paraphrase.

Boundaries and limitations look different for everyone. You might

tell your friend to check in via text so you can have time to

process and consider your response, for example. Again, your job is

not to be a crisis counselor. You might be okay talking about it,

but lately it seems they’re talking about it all the time. Tell them

that. If you value the person at all, tell them. Mental illness is

so all-consuming and it’s so difficult to find a safe person to

share that significant aspect of your life with; it’s easy to fall

prey to word vomit when you find a person willing to listen. If

they’ve been sharing that stuff with you they must consider you a

very close friend, and you probably encouraged them at some point to

open up about it. Chances are, they don’t realize they’re bombarding

you with it, because it’s their normal. I can’t say this enough:

TELL THEM. If you don’t, it feels like the rules of the relationship

changed without their knowledge. It feels like, “What did I do wrong

that my friendship is becoming more distant? Was it this

conversation? Or this one? Maybe they just stopped caring about me?”

A little bit of honesty goes a long way, and unless they’re a toxic

friend (which is a whole separate issue) the last thing they want to

do is trigger you or bring you down. They’ll appreciate that you

care about them and the friendship enough to be transparent with

your own needs and limitations.

It’s okay to set and revisit boundaries and expectations. It’s not

okay to set boundaries and shift expectations in your head and

expect the other person to telepathically get the message. It’s not

okay to discard a human being like a broken computer. Even if you do

have to end a friendship, “Listen, this friendship isn’t working, I

think it’s best we go our separate ways,” is kinder than silence.

Break the silence. I challenge you to be the friend who stays. At

the very least, be the friend who’s straightforward. Mental illness

is confusing enough. No one wants to try to interpret excuses or

silence. Be the person strong enough not to take the easy way out.

It could make all the difference. Be that person.

https://www.speakingofsuicide.com/
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1060&pxfid=2440