How do you help friends who you feel can't be helped.

Hey gang,

It's been a weird week. Month. Year. Fuck man, 2020 has been repulsive. Between the corona virus, Trump continuing to exist, BLM, and everything else, I feel like I'm on a fucking razors edge. And just when you feel it can't get any worse, it does.

A friend got in touch with me this last couple of weeks. They were pretty upset. It turns out their partner had been sexting other people behind their back. And it wasn't the occasional "You look cute" to one person. It feels like it was a calculated effort across multiple people. The level of deception involved seems to be large, widespread, and extremely well orchestrated.

I feel my friend got extremely manipulated by their partner, and it breaks my heart. The depths of manipulations are intense, and completely abhorrent in their machinations, and it makes me feel extremely upset. The thing that gets me more is what's happened this weekend. The cheater got in touch with them and convinced them that they could still be friends. I just feel that my actual friend has been sucked back in to this absolute black hole of a person.

But what can I do? I can support them, sure, but...what else can I do? I don't want to see them get hurt again, but I can see the path they're going down, and I'm physically being affected by it. I'm not sleeping, and I have a constant lump in my stomach over what's going on. I feel too much empathy for my friend, and it breaks my heart to see them hurt like they did this last month.

How do you support and help your friends, when you feel like you've got their best interests at heart, but they can't see reason.

It's hard to be a very empathetic person right now cause eeeeeeeeeeeverything is cranked waaaaaaaaaaaaay up. I've personally been meditating and exercise a LOT more to try and manage anxiety/misery/over-empathy, so try that for your own well-being, and that transitions nicely to the main point: your well-being is important. It is. You have to accept that.

If you're having THIS averse of a reaction to a friend making a bad call in their own life, you might have to distance a bit. If they get hurt again, it's not going to be your problem, but you're going to feel like it is. Sometimes the people we love can't help themselves, and sometimes it's okay to just let whatever's going to happen-happen.

I had to break things off with a VERY good friend somewhat recently because they just WOULD NOT take steps to better their situation. They liked to complain about how awful their lot was, but LITERAL opportunities would come and go and they'd ignore them because some people cannot be helped. You can still be there if your friend needs to call or contact you, I'm not saying abandon them: I'm saying you can't actively keep track of/help them unless/until they want to help themselves at least SOMEWHAT.

This isn't some "they need to pull themselves up by their boostraps" "motivated self-interest" horseshit, I'm not telling you your compassion makes you weak or a victim or anything shitty like that, what I'm saying is: toxicity comes in a lot of different forms, and it's not always a shithead shrieking something awful through a microphone. Sometimes it's someone who puts themselves into bad situations and needs more help than what a friend can offer. But you can still be there if things go badly again, but what you can't do is rub it in their face or try to turn their pain into a "teachable moment." Just be there and try to help, but know: if they don't want your help, you can't force them to listen and for your own good, you may need to get some distance.

@sombre: That sounds like a rough spot to be in, I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for caring though, it does mean a lot even when it doesn't seem that way.

I'm a mental health support worker in the UK and I agree that it is really hard to help someone when you disagree with them on a what will be better for them.

I don't know where your relationship with them stands and what each of your personal circumstances are so take all the following ideas with that in mind:

- you can use your empathy to reach out to theirs. If you tell them what you are going through, i.e. the losing sleep and lump in stomach, they may want to help reduce those feelings in you. (Be prepared that them telling you to * off and mind your own business is entirely within their right and you do have to respect their space) At which point it may be best to let them know that they can get in touch with you if they want to and you will still be there to help, assuming you actually are, and then pull yourself back as much as needed.

- If your relationship is extremely strong, say, childhood and now adult friends or extremely close friends, you can risk a direct challenge to the behaviour. This is as risky as it sounds so you would need the sort of relationship that could handle pretty much anything. The challenge itself would need to take the shape you think would get through to them based on your knowledge of them (TV style interventions nearly always terminate all relationships present and are terrible, don't do that. It just communicates that everyone has turned against them and just copied it off the telly). A good soft method to challenge a behaviour is to ask what they think is important to them in the behaviour and then what is important in the result of the behaviour. Then try to show how they may not link as well as they could or offer another way of getting the result or changing the behaviour whilst maintaining the result. Not easy and probably worth leaving to a professional if one needs to step in.

- The most heavy on you option is to ride it out with them (assuming it is going to go wrong, it may not) and double down on your own self-care to keep yourself safe. If you have a very good support network/strategy/system behind you and they don't, let them use you as their support and brace your own for the increased load. It all depends here on your own strength and as professional, I would say avoid this one unless there is absolutely no alternative. Not only would you be taking on the weight of another, it would be some of the worst days of both your lives so the weight would be enormous.

- To save the best option for last, see if you can muster a support for them in the background. Try to reach out to their other friends, family, even workmates/bosses depending on their work situation. It's best not to explain in much detail what is going on as it is your friends business and they will tell what they want to who they want but just making others aware that you have noticed some changes or are worried for their health and so on should do. Please remember that there is no harm in getting professional help for either you or them. It sounds like this person is in an abusive relationship (very much in the legal definition of the term) and so would trigger a safeguarding alert to help them get out. It isn't a panic button, it's using a system for what is there to do.

Sorry for the long post but it's a hugely complex thing to handle. Feel free to entirely ignore me as you know the situation much better than I do. Good luck and keep yourself safe and strong. The best thing you can do is be ready if they need you.

Cheers,

Mike