Ask Your Loved Ones How They Are
Instead of waiting for them to reach out.
It’s been a shitty few weeks, there’s no doubt about it.
With a one-two punch of high-profile suicides recently, the focus on mental health has never been this high.
And with that focus comes the line that everyone is using as the footer in their article:
To anyone who is considering or has ever considered suicide, know that you are not alone. If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide, don’t hesitate to reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273–8255.
I’ve seen this sign-off in about a hundred articles and twitter posts, but I couldn’t figure out what felt odd about it, until I was trawling Twitter one morning and saw this:
That’s obviously Chrissy Teigen, all-around badass Twitter queen. But it just helped me to articulate what’s been nagging on my mind the past week:
Asking the one who is depressed (the one who are suffering) to reach out, seems to be perpetuating the opinion that it is up to the mentally-ill person to do something to fix their situation.
It puts the onus of responsibility squarely on the sufferer, not on the people around him.
And, if you’ve ever been slightly upset or even emotional, you’ll know that it is stunningly difficult to think clearly. And you’re asking people, people whose minds are telling them to think differently, to think clearly?
That’s…hard. So very hard. Yes, many of them do end up reaching out, and giving the number to the National suicide hotline is useful, but I think we need to focus on something else:
Making sure your loved ones know that you’re there.
“But they don’t tell me anything!”
That’s a common statement I hear all the time, together with
“but you didn’t tell me so that’s why I didn’t ask!”
Do you have a voice? Do you have a mouth? Yes?
Then open that damn mouth and ask.
And ask in the hopes of getting a proper answer. Don’t ask leading questions meant to close the conversation down, like
“You doing okay, right?”
“You good?”
Basically, if the question can be answered without words (i.e. with a shake or nod of the head), or a single 'Yes/No’, it’s a bad question.
Try to ask open-ended questions about their feelings, as it’ll force them to answer. And if they don’t answer, your suspicion radar can start rising.
“How are you feeling nowadays?”
“That situation must be tiring. How are you dealing with it?”
Then, shut up and listen.
Most people will want to tell you what’s wrong. People don’t choose to be alone and suffering; most of the time, they’ve tried telling others, only to be shut down.
So don’t shut them down.
Whatever they tell you, listen.
Treat it like the serious business it is, even if you don’t feel like it.
I cannot tell you how many times I felt like I was drowning in sadness and anxiousness, and how the question 'how are you feeling nowadays?’ saved me.
It made me feel comfortable talking about my feelings, because someone had asked me about it. I felt okay telling someone that a small situation at work had put me into a spiral, and that it really affected me in ways I didn’t understand.
This made me aware of the importance of connecting to others, and how we sometimes have to ensure that the connection continues when it comes to our loved ones.
Just because they know you love them, doesn’t mean they know you care about them.
Now, I make it a point to always ask my friends and loved ones about their lives, but I always ask, as a follow-up question, how they feel about it.
After all, when it comes to our busy, solo lives, it can be surprisingly easy for mental illness to strike (with 300 million worldwide suffering from depression in 2017).
It’s up to us to save each other. You can’t imagine how much it’ll help them, and you as well.
I hope you took away something from this article that helped you. Please feel free to leave comments or follow me here on Medium for more writing.
