Supporting an Important Other Through Grief, Depression, Anxiety

I want to say, plainly and clearly, right at the beginning, none of these reactions or relationships or behaviours are anyone's "fault," but they can be so difficult to be around.

Often, what I hear are terrified people. Many times, it's not the person struggling directly, but the people around them who are watching them drown and getting pulled under. People close to the person are almost too close and have heard "I'm sorry" or "I'll change" too many times. It's hard to keep finding compassion for where someone is at when seeing the same behaviours and feeling the tension of tiptoeing around suggestions that get met with anger and defensiveness.

We (the supporters) want to talk to them (our struggling loved ones), and support them, and love them, but it strikes me that it's like I was told about animals when I was small: animals can smell fear.

By this, I mean less a literal smell, and more a noticing of micro expressions.  The little ways something might be said, or how tone is used, or body language.  Maybe we’re just innocently trying to engage someone in conversation because we care about them, so we begin with “How was your day?” because it seems like a standard, safe, routine question for many people.  And yet, for someone who has lived with their own shame, our struggling loved one could feel it as a judgement.

Many people use the phrase “We’re our own worst enemies,” but for some, that phrase rings especially true.  Some people struggling may be experiencing constant internal embarrassment, as they try to navigate an experience that is overwhelming their ability to cope, while also trying to maintain who they are and how they are used to being seen.  Nobody else might outwardly point out a struggling person’s behaviours, but they don’t need anyone to.  Anyone struggling can become remarkably sensitive to feeling managed and shame blurs the accuracy of the assumption that they are being deliberately hurt.

The Best Intended Suggestions Can Sound Like Judgements

We, as supporters, could choose the kindest, most supportive possible phrasing we could think of, and yet it still gets met with defensiveness, or anger, or reactions that don’t make sense to us, and can feel like trying to walk on eggshells.  How could these reactions make sense?  The person being spoken to isn’t really reacting to the words, they're scanning for danger. Reacting to what a scared nervous system is telling them is a threat (even though it probably doesn’t look like it to anyone else).  Maybe the struggling loved one takes the kindly intended words as a test in disguise. Maybe hearing "How was your day?” actually sounds like “Ugh, are you okay now?  You’ve been sad long enough.”  Again, neither person is trying to intentionally manipulate anyone. There’s a good chance that if there was an ulterior motive behind that question, it was actually to say “I hope you’re doing ok because I care about you and I want to, but I don’t know how to help.”  Yet, when that’s been said before, everything seems like the “wrong thing to say,” so of course there’s a moment of bracing for a tough conversation.  A second where what we want to say is confused by what we’re scared of happening again.  This moment of bracing takes away the genuine concern, and, unfortunately, it’s what a nervous system that’s used to feeling judgement picks up on immediately. 

The most unfair and seemingly unreasonable piece is that what’s being reacted to might not have happened anywhere else but in the internal narrative the struggling person is telling themself.  It’s as if the more reasonable a suggestion offered, the more it hurts to hear it.  Maybe you genuinely want to help, and so you offer "Maybe you should try therapy,” and you're offering it as help.  Yet what often gets received is felt closer to a judgement.  Maybe something like “You are a problem that needs solving, and I am the one pointing that out”. The same words, offered as something you're building with someone rather than delivering to them, land completely differently. "I so badly want to help you, but this goes beyond me, I don't know how.  I’m trying to think of someone who might," carries the same information as quickly saying "You need therapy," but it gives far less for an anxious loop to grab on to.  It tells someone directly where that suggestion came from as opposed to letting someone imagine a hurtful context.

From personal experience, and from talking to others who described similar thinking, a person who’s struggling usually already knows they want things to be different. That's not the missing piece. The missing piece is how.  Each time that painful gap is identified, the shame explodes out, and everyone is in the Splash Zone. Every suggestion gets run through an internal filter that sounds something like condescension.  I think most people can relate to a time when they were told something and thought “If they have to tell me this, it means they don't think I can figure it out myself.”  You can offer the most gently worded suggestion in the world, and it can still confirm a fear that already existed before you opened your mouth.  In a very strange way, that reaction might point to a struggling person caring about the support enough because someone saw them suffering.  It seems like really similar, but different messages.  The struggling person screaming “Make this stop hurting!” while a supportive person is saying “I don’t know how, but I care enough to keep trying.”

Don’t Forget, Everyone Needs Safety

As I hope was clear from the beginning, no part of this is anyone’s “fault.”  Emotional energy is required to defend against shame or brace ourselves for anger.  Many of us wanting to offer support feel tired or run down and want to avoid trying to have a conversation with a loved one we want to support. One we brace themselves for because we’ve tried to start that conversation many times before, but it usually ends with everyone sad and/or angry.  That bracing is not a character flaw, it’s your body doing exactly what it’s meant to do, defend you.  However, it's also what compassion fatigue looks like. You might prepare and rehearse what you'll say. Maybe you feel the warmth of resentment well up in your chest even while trying to remember to say "I love you and I'm here." This gap, between what you feel and what you're saying, is natural and exhausting, and also exactly what the other person is sensing.  Seeing eyes widen in fear as the subject gets brought up again. Hearing “I love you” through gritted, defensive teeth.  The actions don’t match the words.  Many times, it’s our defensive patterns showing up while we try to offer support playing off the defensive patterns of someone already struggling and hurting, and nobody wins.  Yet slowing down and show ourselves kindness, compassion usually gets communicated genuinely.  If you have the chance, stop, and name this for yourself.  Let yourself know you’re doing your best, but it’s hard.

Recognising that our defensive patterns are showing up, and that it’s these patterns that are exhausting, not the person we love, is often the first step to humanising ourselves and everyone else. Defensiveness leaves us clenched, but for many, awareness is the key to relaxing, expanding, remembering we’re taking a risk out of care, and now we can choose the calm confidence our loved ones are looking for.  Ultimately, we’re asking someone to be vulnerable with us.  Quite often, love gets through the defenses when we show our struggling people we can be vulnerable first, show them it’s safe, and invite them to be vulnerable with us.

Boundaries and Compassion Aren't Opposites

We want to support our loved ones, but worry that the more they protect ourselves, the less love is shown.  There’s a belief that establishing boundaries is rigid and uncaring. In reality, boundaries only work with compassion.  I don’t mean the immediate and impulsive bracing right before a conversation, I mean the thought-out, calm, but assertive ways we let someone know, for example, we can’t offer love if we’re scared.  We can, and it’s likely to show love and connection, tell someone struggling that we can be scared with them, but we can’t be put in a protective mode where we are scared of them.  A boundary that's actually held ("I can talk about this for twenty minutes, and then I need to step away") tends to free up more genuine love than a weak boundary nobody could’ve reasonably kept. Everyone’s allowed to protect their own capacity. Doing so might show our loved one that if we are brave enough to hold space for our own safety, we can probably hold space to keep them safe, too.

As I said at the beginning, it’s nobody’s fault that this is where things are.  However, it’s the responsibility of the whole system to change.  We’re asking our loved ones to be vulnerable, take a risk, and let us in to their world a little.  It only makes sense that we have to be willing to do the same.

It doesn’t take a huge, grand gesture to model vulnerability and show we want to support them and keep them safe.  Just slightly shifting what we say can have a very different emotional tone, even if the core message stays the same.

• Instead of "You need to stop doing this" we might try "I don’t know what’s wrong or how to help, but I’m here.  I just need to be allowed to be human."
• Instead of "Have you thought about getting help?" we might say "I want to help you, but I don't have the tools for this.”
• Instead of going quiet or changing the subject, we might try telling them what we want and listening to them: "I'm scared because I can’t stand to see you hurting, but I don’t want to sound like I’m blaming you.  What can I do for you?"

In these examples, the point is modeling and showing vulnerability by saying what we want.  Above all, we want to help them, so why not lead with telling them that? It’s saying the same thing, but starting from somewhere that tells them where it came from, instead of letting them guess.  A place that shows we care and we’re in the pit with them, not looking down at them and saying “I’ve noticed what’s wrong, and I can see the way out from up here.  My view is the correct one, and you need to change so you can see my perspective.”

Often, showing the courage to start a conversation from a vulnerable place changes the whole feeling.  It becomes an actual dialogue, two humans talking to each other, instead of sounding like a lecture.  If we can speak with our loved ones from a place of genuine care and honesty, it shines through. 

The big takeaway here is trying to remember what our ultimate goal is, to offer help to a loved one who’s struggling.  To keep in mind that both sides are human.  Usually, the actual words used don’t matter as much as showing we’re with someone.  It’s less about trying to know an exact solution, and much more about being someone safe to talk to, and who can hold space by setting and maintaining boundaries with compassion.  When the conversation turns to something that goes beyond anyone’s ability to cope, there are many trained professionals to reach out to who can pick up the conversation from there.  Talking with a professional can offer different perspectives, support, and freedom for everyone. Yet whether you’re someone struggling, or someone trying to support them, just not feeling crushed under the weight of trying to handle it all alone is a wonderful and important place to start.

Bill Arbuckle is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC) and founder of Hard Road Counselling in Vancouver, BC, serving communities across BC.  He specialises in addictions work, but that often extends to the underlying struggles, such as anxiety and depression.  His approach is centered around moving forward from exactly where people are.