How to Show People You Care Even if You Think You Can’t Help Them
Being there for other people shouldn’t be this hard.
Someone else’s suffering is often perceived like a disease. People first feel sorry about you. Then they feel embarrassed around you, for they have no idea how to help. Finally, they abandon you.
I experienced it first when my father died. I was 24 — too young to lose a parent, especially to suicide. There was nothing rational about it — it was inexplicable and unreal. I couldn’t deal with it, but I had to. No one else could deal with it — but they had the chance to walk away.
After the initial flood of compassion from others, I noticed how my friends started to avoid me like I was infected. I don’t think there was a time when I would have needed my friends more than back then — but they couldn’t bear being around me.
I accidentally got CC-d into an email between two of my friends who were discussing my father’s death behind my back, concluding that they feel stupid that all I can talk about is the death and the funeral. It was a week after it happened.
If being abandoned felt horrible, being pitied and feeling like a burden was even worse. They didn’t have the emotional intelligence to deal with something this serious. I called them out on it…
