If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
- 2) Know when you don’t know the answers.I had one friend who, when he felt the thing I mentioned above, the “I’ve known you for so long, but never seen you act quite like this over anything, no matter how upsetting” (and of course, he’d seen me pretty upset before), he didn’t get frustrated with me or huff and puff and leave. He sat me down and asked if we could really talk about it.
I ended in so many tears I could hardly speak. And he was no more equipped than to listen. He was kind and a good listener. But once he knew I’d been assaulted – (And here’s a side note, I didn’t even use the the words “assault” or “rape” or anything like that with him. I just explained in detail what happened and he was like “okay, that’s sexual assault. Anyway…) He didn’t know precisely what to do or how to support someone with who’d been through this. This was a new frontier for him as well as me.So, he encouraged me to call the RAINN hotline, which I did, which got the ball rolling toward therapy and me getting better and everything.He knew something was really wrong. He knew enough to ask. And he knew enough to send me to somewhere else for answers, because he knew he didn’t have them.Those were all the right things to do.And I don’t know that I would’ve known enough to do those things. I say that I really wish more people would’ve been like that for me. But I kind of imagine if a great friend of mine seemed really edgy or something, I’m not positive that my first impulse would be “they really need help.”I could totally imagine thinking, “she seems off, but if something were really wrong, she’d tell me.” Or, “she can take care of herself. I’m not her parent. I don’t want to overstep bounds. She’ll ask if she needs help,” or “okay, give her some space. You know this person. You know she’s a reasonable adult. If something’s bothering her this much, maybe don’t freakout and smother her. Just kind of keep a quiet eye on the situation. Give her space and proceed cautiously,” or any other number of things that results in me not being actually helpful.
And I might be good intentioned at heart – as I’m nearly certain probably every one of my friends were. But the friend who saw something was off and asked to talk about it, and set me on the path toward help… He’s the one I remember the most as being the most helpful. Where would I be without him? I dunno. Help. Be helpful. Think to help. Never hurts to ask.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!