Difficult Conversations With Your closest Friends
Are you feeling something horrible and need someone to talk to?
Call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14
or
Call Lifeline USA at 988
tw: This post will discuss strategies through which one might talk about issues of mental health with their friends as either a concerned listener or someone experiencing various crises, which includes extensive discussion of suicide and suicidal thoughts.
It isn’t easy to talk about your feelings, unless you’re one of those annoying people who ruins conversations with their sad-sack yammering.
Just kidding.
A bit of humor to lighten the mood of what will surely be a difficult thing for you to read, a difficult thing for me to write, and an even more difficult conversation that you’ll likely be having with someone you love, and who needs it badly.
It is important to have these conversations because without them, we lose each other. Often figuratively, but sometimes literally, and it is devastating to consider how many loved ones may still be with us if only conversations about mental health and self-destruction were more permitted, encouraged, and we were given the tools to have them effectively.
To be clear, this article isn’t meant to be a comfort or an evaluator, rather it is meant to encourage you in some small way to have a conversation with those around you, whether you are the person feeling dire or a person who has noticed someone feeling.
How uncomfortable is this, huh? Yeah, this sucks. I get it. Especially when you are feeling a way such as yourself, this is a miserable thing to have to indulge in because you likely do not want to admit that there is a problem, or worse, you are committed to your feelings and don’t want to be seen by yourself seeking a non-violent solution.
Allow me to break the ice. As an adolescent and into adulthood, I didn’t believe I’d allow myself to live to be twenty five, but look at me now, defiantly and unabashedly twenty nine. I get it. There is always hope.
That said, it’s a difficult task. It feels like you’re confessing something; coming clean to a misdeed you’ve done or raising a hazard flag above your head that you’ve been infected with something heinous. Expressing how you’re feeling can feel even more isolating because of the baggage that it comes with, and yet, it is necessary to out yourself, because nothing can be endured alone.
There is a distinction to be made, I think, between two mindsets that are often taken to be singular while in the pit of sadness and impossibility. I have found that most don’t want to die necessarily, so much as they cannot see a way forward. There is a difference between wanting a death and simply not knowing how to live. That distinction is important.
The frustration that you’re experiencing in not seeing a way forward isn’t uncommon and doesn’t make you wrong, but it does make you in need of something whether it be company, guidance, medical attention, or any number of things.
When you’re hungry, you eat. When you have a sunburn, you apply aloe. When you’re feeling this way, you need to find the thing. That can be a difficult determination to make, and a little help doesn’t hurt. Two heads are better than one. Ask a friend, a family member, a doctor - anyone that you feel close to, and for any reason.
From what I’ve experienced, people in these pits are put off by reaching out because they think they need to be immediately forthcoming about their feelings, and if you’re comfortable doing that, then great, but you don’t have to. I know people who have been changed without ever needing to directly discuss the thing that is bothering them, if there even is one particular thing.
Seeking help doesn’t need to come in the form of a serious or heavy talk; what matters most is that you’re seeking it.
By doing something as simple as sitting in the park with a friend talking about nothing important, you can gain traction toward feeling differently. You’ll be surprised at how effective laughing with your friends for an hour can be in changing your outlook that day. Ask someone whose company you can tolerate to spend some time together doing something that you enjoy or in an environment that you feel comfortable in. If you can talk through how you’re feeling, that is great, but don’t feel pressure toward yourself to dive into vulnerability straight away. Being near to someone and putting in the effort and you witnessing yourself putting in the effort, that is what is most important.
Of course, it needs to be said that if things are becoming so drastic that you feel in danger, you need to seek medical attention immediately. However, particularly for the American youth without healthcare or in rural communities, access to these services may be limited if completely non-existent, which means that unfortunately and extremely unfairly, you are responsible for you.
If you are concerned about a friend, even in the slightest, it is worth mentioning it to them. Again, it doesn’t need to be a heavy talk straight away, though the situation may call for it, in which case it is more your job to listen than to advise, and above all, do not get frustrated. Patience is important. Someone is being vulnerable with you, which means they are trusting you with themselves, and you need to appreciate how difficult that may be for them. What matters most is being there. Send a text asking how they are, what they’re doing. Send a funny meme. Send a photo of yourself. Ask them for advice on something. Be present. Be their friend, over and over again.
It’s a daunting task, suggesting to anyone that they may not be okay, that they may be fallible, or in a depth that they can’t see quite out of and that you’re concerned about them, but it is an important thing to do. Lifesaving, even.
Because some people benefit from direct advice, here are some messages that you can send if you’re concerned about someone:
‘Hey man, I have a bunch of errands to run today, do you want to come keep me company on them?’
‘Hey, just thinking of you. Remember that time you ________ all over the _____ and we couldn’t stop laughing?’
‘I’ve been having a weird time at work, can I call you and get your take?’
Or if you’re the person feeling bad but don’t want to dump on people or be vulnerable straight away:
‘What you doin? You wanna go with me to the park?’
‘I’ve had a shit day, let’s get a beer.’
‘Things have been weird for me lately, I’m a little worried. If you have a sec can I give you a call and get your take?’
If things are serious and desperate, send a message to someone saying you’re having serious suicidal thoughts and that you’re feeling in danger. That is the best thing that you can do for yourself. However, if you’re like me, or my friends, or my family, or most of the people I’ve encountered, or are shy, or are holding tightly onto shreds of toxic masculinity that have instilled a sense of shame in you tied so deeply to any form of emotional vulnerability that the thought of being open with another person and admitting any degree of emotional fragility or weakness makes you physically ill, it can be difficult to talk about these things, but you need to. You do. Things get better, they always do. When you’re already at the bottom, there is only one direction you can go.
‘Enjoy the little things,’ is a phrase I’ve found myself spouting to others sitting in holes of their own, and it is a sentiment that I truly believe in. It is a solution to the vast emptiness – that even if there isn’t a destiny or a mission or a meaning, that the flowers in the vase are still beautiful and the music is still good enough to dance to; that life isn’t a hundred dollar bill but ten thousand pennies all saved up and possessed and seen, spilled all over the floor just waiting for you to pick them up.
Are you feeling something horrible and need someone to talk to?
Call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14
or
Call Lifeline USA at 988