How to be there for someone
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
- Know this: you have the power to help someone get through a painful time, and all it takes is your presence. You don’t have to solve their problem, or say the perfect thing, or somehow find a way to eliminate their challenges. You just need to be there with them.
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This is so validating for me.
I had someone tell me that the proper way to help someone was to give them tangible solutions. I felt kind of useless for trying to understand people and to just sit with their emotions and pain with them. People have been quite receptive to my help, but when this person told me this, I tried to offer more tangible solutions and try to be more "positive", inserting positive quotes and saying things like "you can get through this!" I realized that this was quite alienating for people, they stopped reaching out to me and telling me their problems. I even had one person just straight up tell me it was unhelpful, that he didn't want consoling or advice. Eye opening.
Thank you for the video. I've been confused about this lately.
Thank you so much for the work you are doing on Planet Earth.
Quality content. We will probably suffer but we don’t have to be so alone in it.
LOVE
Beautifully explained, thank you
”Fixers” make it worse and cause trauma
My partner HATED it when i asked him any form of,how are you, how do you feel, are you ok for months after a big bad a life event. He would get mad angry or moody when i asked him.
He was suffering all the time and wouldnt be able to talk about light topics either... He wouldnt talk about his suffering too so we would just end up not talking.
It was so hard for me to show him i cared except than to say im there for you or IF he does speak about his feelings which is rare, then to say it must be so hard. We would be on the phone most of the time in silence and i could feel some sort of dissappointment or resentment from his side. I knew for that he was feeling that i didnt understand him and that im not symphathetic enough,not understanding of his condition enough, or he wouldnt be able to feel that i AM there for him. I would try, watch these kinds of videos, read articles about how to make someone feel youre there for them. But all of them were... not very helpful.
At one point where he was really getting distant he said "maybe you arent more than just a regular friend and i dont need a regular friend" after i had i told him "why arent you even talking to me anymore" , yes we were in a relationship when he said that. Even to this day i dont know how i should have acted or what i should have done to be enough.
Then he slowly started to act closer to me. Now he acts like those times didnt even happen and says he is happy with me. I dont understand what changed. What was wrong then and what is fixed now. It was a year ago. I tried to do my best. Blamed myself a lot. I was also in depression back then so maybe i wasnt at my best but i dont know. I still dont know.
Hey, I don’t know you, but I felt like writing something in response to your story. I think something this video doesn’t mention is that in the same way a lot of people don’t learn how to be there for others, many people also don’t learn how to let others be there for them. You might empathize with that lack of ability, but it also isn’t anything to do with you. It isn’t something to blame yourself for. I know that self blame is a hard thing to give up and again, I’m a stranger. I just think you should at least also be proud of how much you did try, which is more than a lot of people would.
It DOES sound to me like it was worse than I might think and he might have benefited from talking, or at least that I might have benefited from talking and closeness were I in his place, but there are these two things I would suggest:
1. Everyone doesn't benefit from talking about things, or talking about them in specific amounts or at specific times. The general advice one gets everywhere now is not always true, at all sometimes, or for some people at some times. Talking is not always the answer, and it feels to some like goading. Sometimes a person would benefit, but not right away or at any given time. There are quite literally no guarantees, nor any solution that fits everyone.
2. Sometimes the only thing that helps is time, and nothing one does matters until that time passes. Sometimes there is just no way around that.
I appreciate that doesn't make any real relationship easier, but these things are often true. I think my comment is somewhat consistent with what The New Happy says, and somewhat orthogonal to it. But I think it fits.
sounds like everything you did was right and he just needed time to heal and come around
My mom had a customer who was in chronic pain to such a degree that he'd been trained to literally not think about it. So he told people to never ask him "how are you?" because it would call his attention to the one thing he was deliberately trying to block out of his mind.
Also, as a Neurodivergent introvert, there are plenty of times when I don't feel safe opening up about what I'm going through, or when it feels awkward to let others see me go through negative emotions. Sometimes when another person tries to get me to "open up" to them, that's the *last* thing I want to do.
P.S. With regards to your expeirence, the short timeframe and the "act like those times didn't even happen" is making me concerned about potential gaslighting (since there are certain types of abusive cycles that shift between negative phases and "closer to me, happy with me" phases). All the more since you've been blaming yourself for behavior outside your control. I truly hope this isn't the case, but I *am* worried about you.
I hope you'll read up on negative relationship dynamics enough to be informed in case there *is* a more serious problem there. An odd resource I can recommend is a site called Issendai, which discusses estranged parents forums in a set of pages called "Down the Rabbit Hole". Although it discusses narcissistic parents specifically, it's an eye-opening look into the mindset of certain types of abusive people and how their behavior affects the people they claim to love.
@@NymphalidaeBlueYou put it wonderfully.
I also think it's way, way more of a challenge being close to that person and being there with them over time. It's hard to know what they need because that might change over time. And as a person yourself you would also need to find breaks from their sadness without letting them down. And it's hard to know that you've done good because you can't eliminate the pain and he'll still be in pain. Seems time often does heal though.
Very nicely stated.
I would loathe someone doing any of this to me and I would loathe doing it for someone else. Literally I would much rather just be left alone. If I have a friend who'd expect this from me they came to the wrong person and I'd just direct them to talk to someone else.
I for one do not want to be stared at or asked how I’m managing when going through trauma
jup, father never talked to me at all and my mom tried in her way but she definitly doesn't know how to be there in a way that i wouldnt have felt lonely. this explains sooooo much. thx i needed to learn that :d
Beautiful
Excellent!!!
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you know wat why dont ro go and sleep with them ok
All of this language is very clinical. It feels like This would feel like talking to a therapist. If my friend said "You seem overwhelmed - is that right?" I would ask them if their AI chips were malfunctioning. If my friend said "You're so brave" and they weren't being sarcastic - I would feel belittled and sarcasm anyway. This just doesn't feel organic - but at least it's not toxic advice. I'm sure it works? It just feels clinical.