How Can I Help Someone Who’s Hurting?
Firstly, this is not a complete comprehensive guide on how to help someone you care about who’s suffering. This is a blog. It’s meant to begin your journey - not to finish it. If you’ve landed here from a google search or other social media query - you’ve probably already done everything you know how to do to help them and you’re looking for more ideas. Good for you. You’re ahead of the game. Stay that way.
How do I help someone who’s struggling with mental health?
PRESS-S - Pause, Research, Encourage, Surround, Self-Support
Pause
If you love someone with mental health struggles that means you’re thinking about it. You’re living with it in your home. You’re hiding things from people that wouldn’t understand. You’re triggered by odd things that would cause chaos in your home, but not others’ homes. Your perspective and world view has grown and developed to survive around the bad times so that you can experience the good times - if you’re able to enjoy them. You’re hanging on and staying strong just as hard as they are. Pause.
If you’re a friend or you know someone who’s struggling that doesn’t live in your home or a part of your family - take a moment to recognize how infectious mental health struggles are for your community.
Pause to reflect on how this person’s suffering is affecting you.
Then pause again and reflect on how you are affecting other people in your life at work or place of worship.
Look at the situation as it is, not as you want it to be. Work with what you have, after you pause to figure out what you’ve got.
Research
Do you know what your loved one’s symptoms are? Are you able to distinguish between a character defect and a symptom? Do you know the difference between someone who’s excited about spring cleaning or someone who’s about to commit suicide? Do you know what happens to someone’s brain when they see pornography? Do you know why a child with ADHD may lie to you, when it’s pretty obvious they’re lying? Do you know their ACE score and how that influences how their brains and bodies developed? - Probably not - AND THAT’S OK! That’s probably not your job. It’s mine. It’s my passion and my calling. Your passion maybe mechanical in nature. Your calling may be accounting or hospitality or chemistry or solving very difficult problems that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
Your home is also your calling and passion, which makes this person’s suffering and care your job as well - to a precious fine point. It’s unreasonable to expect you to go back to school and get degreed and licensed in the mental health field (unless it’s perfectly reasonable and you want to) - but it is reasonable to do the following:
Google it - there are so many great blogs and scholarship articles out there about what your person is fighting. If you’re unsure what the diagnosis is, google the strange behaviors. Find something that fits your situation. You’re going to get some bad information when you google a thing, so be sure to -
Ask Questions - Ask your loved one what they’re going through. Ask them about the hard times. Forward them an article and ask, “Is this how you feel?” Ask them what they think you could do to help. You may get the “I don’t know” answer, so make an offer that’s specific.
Read a book on the topic - this may be tough, because there are so many options and truly you may not know which book to try and digest. Read the reviews and comments. Look for a review from a licensed mental health professional.
Take a workshop or webinar - therapists are constantly trying to help the general public understand mental health symptoms better so that we can lower generational trauma, suicide, and the unfair treatment of those with mental health disorders.
Look for treatments in your area. - What are people doing to treat this mental health struggle? Have they tried anything before? Was it helpful? What haven’t they tried yet? Every brain is like a finger print and not every therapy modality will help everyone. Some therapists specialize in specific disorders, some have training in areas that are far beyond what is typically offered in your area. Look for them.
Podcasts - Do a quick listen to a few podcasts about boundaries or the specific mental health disorder that your loved one is struggling with. There could be information that’s helpful for you and more specific to you in a podcast that’s easily digestible.
Encourage
Encouragement is difficult when we’re wired to see the things that have gone wrong instead of the things that have gone right. I heard a great piece of advice this morning from Craig Groeschel,
“Don’t tell him what he’s not. Tell him what you see him becoming.”
This is a concept within Solution Focused Brief Therapy called, Exception Finding. Often times an SFBT Therapist will ask the client to, “notice the times when the problem is not as bad.” Why would we ask that? Because there is something important about those moments that we may be missing. Perhaps they slept really well the night before? Perhaps a spouse held their hand during a stressful car ride? Perhaps they parked their car in the shade this time? Whatever tiny thing it is - in session, we ask them to notice it.
You can encourage your loved one by pointing out the times that you notice the problem is less invasive to them. If your child has ADHD and you notice that they were able to manage their anger outburst tell them, “I noticed you respected me by holding your tongue and I really appreciate it.”
If your spouse has suffered the loss of a parent and you noticed that they spent less time in bed today - welcome them with a hug and point out that it’s great to see them.
If your co-worker has PTSD notice the times when they’re expressing positive perception and enjoying themselves. Tell them, “Wow, your idea really encouraged me. Thank you.”
You can encourage through multiple avenues:
Notice and the exceptions.
Tell them what you see them becoming.
Touch - Holding a hand, holding a hug for a little longer, or embracing at night.
Being Needed - It is encouraging to people to know that they’re needed. That they’re important. That they’re worth it, and that they’re competent. Maybe expectations change during a depressive episode to more reasonable expectations, but they’re still competent and needed.
Notice the strengths - Did you know that people with ADHD and generally more intelligent than the neurotypical community? Did you know they can problem solve with certain strategies that would confuse a mathematician? Did you know that some people with dyslexia can look at a blueprint and quickly be able to see it as a complete, three dimensional building? Have you noticed that people with PTSD can sense the change of a crowd and leave before a riot? Or that they always know where the exits are in a room?
This is not to say that the symptoms of any of these diagnoses are not debilitating at times. They are, and can be for the family as well - but again - know your lane. You are not this person’s therapist or doctor. The research you completed in step 2 is for your perception and knowledge about how to best support this person. Not to diagnosis or change them. You can never successfully control another person, but you can influence them. What is your influence? Do you speak life into them with your words?
Surround
You absolutely cannot and should not be the only person in your loved one’s life that is around and knowledgeable of their struggle. Offer to surround them with others who can help as well. This may be a community of people who help cook and clean for them while they are in treatment. It could be a car pool to take kids to and from school. Perhaps you notice that this person is too overwhelmed to make a therapist or doctor appointment for themselves, so you help them by doing it for them. What they need to be surrounded with will depend on the diagnosis, but generally you want to attempt to surround them with people that will show them support. If this person isn’t living in your home, reach out to them and offer to be someone that surrounds them.
As a community we could think about surrounding this person much like the Roman’s would use the Testudo (Tortoise) Formation to surround and protect each other as they moved forward. Life is moving whether we want it to or not. Sometimes people have to be carried along or they’re lost behind us, but this formation can’t really be done with only 2 people. It only works if the community is working together to protect, support, and carry the person struggling.
Each person has a job to do that could be helpful to someone struggling.
Surround them with Support
Therapists - Make them an appointment, or help them find a therapist that works for them if they’ve already tried therapy and hated it. Or maybe, they don’t quite understand their insurance benefits and it’s too overwhelming to learn. If you have the energy, use it to add a therapist to your formation.
Doctors - The same applies to doctors. Do they have a psychiatrist or a family practitioner? When’s the last time they had blood drawn? Add one to your formation.
Groups - Find other groups, conventions, meetups, classes or other social activities with people who may understand what they’re going through. These could be support groups, therapy groups, coaching groups, peer mentoring groups, conventions - anything really. Add them to your formation.
Spiritual Practices - The formation works if everyone has a shield. Using prayer, mindfulness, meditation or other spiritual practice can help you mentally hold up the shield to protect yourself and the others in your formation.
Self-Support
Self-Support is fundamental to your ability to support your loved one. If you aren’t eating, sleeping, or showering because of your concern - you then become another person that is without the ability or energy to help them. You have the ability to sacrifice to the point of death, but such a death doesn’t cause healing to those around you especially your kids. But how do you know when you are sacrificing too much? How do you know if you’re helping or hurting the other person and yourself?
Consult Professionals - There are many professionals in the field that will help you navigate the difficult decisions you are faced with.
Family and Friends Support Groups - a google search can usually find a support group for friends and families with certain mental health struggles. I used to run a support group for Caregivers of Veterans with PTSD through the PTSD Foundation of America. There are lots of other spaces where support is available like Al-Anon/Alateen, Divorce Care, or even a NAMI Family Support Group
A life group or church group - This could be a great option for some people as well. These are usually designed to create more community and have people walk through life with you. This could be your formation.
Meetups - There are various meetup groups for hobbies and things that may be interesting to you. This is a way to make sure you’re not getting lost in your loved one’s struggle. This creates easy time boundaries for you as well.
Social Media Groups - These are hit and miss. If you’re in crisis, I don’t recommend them because they will continue to trigger you, but if you’re looking to see if others are experiencing the same type of issue you are - they can be helpful. My warning is that not everyone who starts a social media group has healed or knows how to help you. They’re often looking for healing themselves. However, gems do exist in the social media community. Your decrement is very important.
The Hope Place also offers Groups that may be helpful in supporting yourself or your loved one.
Why aren’t they better?
Mental Health is complicated. It involves a lot of neurology and decision making that is sometimes complicated by external factors like a tragic event. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are shown to change the brain in such a way that makes feeling good harder than someone with a very low or non existent ACE score. Maybe something has happened in their lives that they don’t feel comfortable discussing with you, because they have healthy boundaries. Maybe they were born with a brain that sees and experiences the world differently than you do like ADHD and Dyslexia. There are so many maybes surrounding why someone may not be better yet, but this is not your lane. Don’t let the “whys” distract you from actually providing the support they need and that you want to give. We as a community owe it to ourselves to love each other, and that doesn’t mean judging the severity of someone else’s suffering and whether or not they should be hurting.