Anonymous
Have you helped a friend or a family member and supported them through a mental health difficulty? If so, how did you support them? Was it frustrating? Worrying? Did you feel helpless, or were you glad you could be there as a support? What would you say to someone helping a friend through a tough time? Do you think listening is important? If so, why? How important is social support and acceptance and is there a limit to our understanding?
It’s very difficult to describe how utterly helpless watching someone you love suffer from a mental illness can make you feel. I have known one of my dearest friends (Anna*) both pre and post her diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, and it has been a challenging time. It has made me re-evaluate my whole life: everything I consider important, who I am as a person, and what I could do to make things different.
There have been dark moments, moments when you can’t do anything but stand there and tell yourself it can’t be real. No one really feels this way. This can’t be happening, not to her, not to me, not to us. We’re too normal for this. This happens to other people; in films, on TV, but not to us in our little normal lives. Our middle-class, privileged, normal lives. Another dear friend of mine has had to confiscate every knife, pair of scissors, and/or razor blade Anna might come in contact with. At this moment in time they are still hidden from her. That is her reality and our normality.
Anna hates going into college because she doesn’t want to see or speak to anyone. She has to force herself to leave the house, with the promise of a reward at the end of lectures for making it through the day (hot chocolate, a magazine, anything). We congratulate her for talking to someone new, speaking up in class, or just having a positive day. It can feel at times like babysitting, because she is so fragile. And it is frustrating. Anna lacks the ability to keep anything in perspective: a snide remark is bullying, a boy looking at her the wrong way means she is fat, she likes to be cuddled all the time. On the other hand she can be completely impulsive: I’ve also had to come home early from nights out to talk her out of going dancing on her own.
The scariest moments are when she won’t take her medication. The nature of bi-polar medication, from what I’ve experienced, is to stabilise the highs and lows of the condition: so when Anna is on a high the medication brings her down. And she doesn’t like that. All you can do to support her is watch her take her pills, and listen to what she’s feeling. You don’t understand it. Any of it. But she doesn’t mind; all she wants is to be heard.
I’ve sat and held Anna whilst she’s said she thinks it’s selfish of her family to keep her here when she’s hurting so much. That every night she prays that she’ll just fade away in her sleep. I’ve also danced with her, laughed with her, watched her paint, heard her sing, and known that the world would be lost without her. I am helpless everyday, but so is she.
If anyone is affected by this article or the issues it discusses please contact the Students’ Union Welfare Officer at [email protected]
