How can I help my friend without making things worse?
Question
I have a friend who’s dealt with mental health issues for a long time, things like low self-esteem, depression, anxiety and social phobia. Over the years I’ve really tried to help. I’ve given advice, offered support, encouraged him to stick with his medication or go back to the doctor if something didn’t seem right.
These days he’s doing okay for the most part. He’s more stable now but the low self-esteem still lingers. He recently started therapy, which I think is a good move because it means he’s trying to work on the actual issues instead of just the symptoms. The hard part is that we live in a rural area where mental health support is hard to come by. Sometimes you’re lucky to even get one appointment a month.
What’s been bothering me lately is this feeling that I might not be helping as much as I thought. He seems to see me as someone who has the answers and instead of really working on things himself, he still leans on me a lot. I’ve started to think that I might be getting in the way of his progress. I know I have a bit of a bossy side, and honestly, I kind of enjoy helping him because it makes me feel useful. Maybe I’ve been spoon-feeding him too much help and now he’s less likely to try things on his own.
I really want to know how I can be supportive without making things worse. I get that if he wants to change, he has to be the one to do the work and learn how to manage things himself but it’s tough for me to sit back and not offer those “helpful” nudges. I keep going back and forth between wanting to tell him what I think he should do (which I know probably isn’t helpful) and trying to gently challenge him to think differently without pushing him in any one direction.
It feels like I’ve been playing the role of an unofficial therapist for years, just going off what I’ve picked up online and in books but the last thing I want is to be holding him back.
What kind of advice would you give to someone in my shoes—someone who wants to help but also wants to do it the right way?
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Answer
You’re in an interesting place right now regarding your relationship with your friend. For years you’ve had a parental (in the sense of benevolent leader) attitude towards him, but lately your thinking has grown towards the realization that your helpful impulses might be serving your own needs as much or more as your friends need for helpful interventions. You’re on the right track, because you are genuinely concerned for your friend’s welfare and want to do the right things. It’s a hard call to know when to support and when to let well enough be, particularly when it comes to depressed people (apathetic behavior being a symptom of depression).
It’s definitely fine to express your knowledge that life can get better if he engages various psychological and/or medical interventions. It’s quite okay to offer practical supportive pushes towards getting help (for example, providing the telephone number of a qualified therapist, or gathering and offering helpful resources like books and websites). It gets more ‘grey’ when it comes to you making an appointment for him, or pressuring him to change, particularly if he perceives you as more judgmental than compassionate.
One thing you can do which will be helpful is to work on yourself so that you can better understand your own motivations pushing you to act ‘pushy’. For instance, is there an empathic feeling of helplessness that your friend’s helplessness provokes in you that you have difficulty tolerating? If so, are you trying to manage your own feelings by managing his? If this is the case, lay off a little and work on ways that you can better manage your own emotions. It is totally commendable that you want to help your friend, but you must recognize that you cannot ultimately control his behavior.