Okay, last week I bemoaned the fact that people say, “I’m here for you” when their follow-up words and actions indicate otherwise. I needed to unload. I needed to leave readers with food for thought…maybe some introspection and some tweaking of their own interactions.
It’s nice to be nudged instead of nagged.
Still, I feel this post is a necessary complement to last week’s. Mental health still has its stigma. It’s hard to wade into unknown waters. Perhaps my perspective regarding what I’d want may provide guidance to navigating heart-to-heart conversations with your own friends and family who may experience mental health challenges.
Let me preface things by saying I have had a few good conversations lately in which I’ve felt heard and understood. One of my closest friends moved to Montreal six months ago and I flew there for a weeklong visit. She’d known I was struggling, partly with depression but primarily with my eating disorder, and we were talking about it in-depth within the first hours of the visit. Another person is a new friend whom I met for a second time for a glass of wine on a deck overlooking Jericho Beach and the Burrard Inlet. To be clear, both these people have been open with me about their own histories involving eating disorders. There is nothing that compares with talking with people who can knowingly nod—Been there, done that…or something like that. These people are dearer to me for letting me lean when I’ve needed to. Their understanding is implicit, but it is expressed, too. I’m not expecting a friend or family member to provide that caliber of support. That just wouldn’t be fair.
Still, whether it’s an eating disorder or any number of other mental health conditions—on my Insta account, I describe myself as a hoarder of MH labels—one basic tenet that I want people to know is that the condition is not a one-day thing. It’s not like someone saying they’re “depressed” because their team lost a game or you lost a key document when your laptop crashed. It’s not like when someone says they’re “anxious” about a date tomorrow night or have anxiety over an upcoming job interview. Without further information, these are presumably non-clinical cases of sadness and worry…regular emotions situationally arising in predictable contexts. In such cases, listening to the person requires being in the moment and perhaps a next-day or next-week follow-up. “Hey, did a tech guy recover your lost document?” “How’d the date go?” Done.
If you don’t have the same mental health diagnosis, your understanding of what someone is going through requires more information…from THAT person. In a nutshell, it’s about asking open-ended questions and then actually listening, even seeking further clarification.
“How are you doing?” is a starting point.
Often, I don’t trust that the person really wants to know. Even if they listened well on a previous occasion, I tend to assume it’s a default question with a default answer: Fine. Okay. Good. Sometimes I even reflexively say, “Super!” It comes from a boss of mine who used that word to define her mood and most everything else. It’s a basic word but, when used by an adult, it comes off as surprising. We’re socialized to not be so enthused…unless our team has a big game and we’re wearing a block of cheese as a hat. At meetings, I entertained myself by tallying spoken “supers.” My punishment? The word found a prominent place in my own vernacular.
You don’t get a gold star for asking “How are you?” to a depressed person. Upon first ask, the answer is rarely, “Not so good” or “I’m struggling.” That only comes as a first response if they truly trust you, if the two of you have a track record of meaningful check-ins or if they just can’t even fake an “Okay.” If anything, I’m less trusting after being more open. Too many times the other person has gone out of their way to shut down the gloom. Good god, it's Debbie Downer again. Sometimes they reach too quickly for a diversionary tactic, such as an upper from the movie Up: “SQUIRREL!”
To let the person know you really want to know, you have to express that, maybe by even naming the context:
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“What I mean is, how are you really doing?”
“Fine.”
“Last time you were feeling depressed. What’s your current mood?”
I think there’s an assumption that naming a mental health condition is invasive. Tread lightly. Be the holly-jolly friend. Be the pick-me-up.
Yeah, that’s just grating. Obnoxious even. If I’m depressed and you’re playing the role of cheerleader, I want to flee. I want to block your number. You and your “super” this, “super” that” are not good for me. (I really must expunge that dang word.)
Here’s an obvious statement that nonetheless needs to be stated: If you’ve never had, say, an eating disorder, clinical depression or been diagnosed as bipolar, there’s an inherent imbalance in knowledge and experience. This is not the time to play Match Game. To talk about when you went on a diet and then—Presto—suddenly stopped, isn’t going to connect you to someone with an eating disorder. It sure isn’t helpful advice. It shows a complete dismissal of what the person with anorexia or bulimia is going through.
Keep listening. Keep asking. You don’t need to come up with an anecdote about how you can relate because you can’t. A person doesn’t talk about a bout with the flu to respond to a cancer patient going through chemo. A person doesn’t mention a broken wrist to relate to someone who has had their leg amputated. A person’s appendectomy doesn’t come up when someone is scheduled for brain surgery.
Relating is often part of empathy, but sometimes understanding comes from listening and letting all that’s said digest, the nods coming not from “been there,” but “I hear you.”
One more key point: Don’t try to fix your friend or family member. All I want and need is to be heard. Just talking about a current struggle releases some of the inner chaos. Just be present. Be there.
Keep listening. Keep asking. Keep nodding from gained understanding. That’s all.
For my eating disorder, I’ve dealt with the following professionals, all in multiples: medical doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, dietitians, occupational therapists, counsellors, art therapists, cardiologists, group home attendants, medical technicians, adapted exercise instructors and spiritual therapists. I’ve also been in support groups for people with eating disorders. My team.
I’ve had different teams for depression, anxiety and being bipolar. Smaller but still a full enough roster so we could don uniforms with garish colors and stand beside a head-scratching mascot for a team photo. None of that happens. I don’t want to start a mental health scrapbook.
Think about it. If whole teams of professionals can’t fix me, there isn’t a suggestion or piece of advice you say that will suddenly make all the pieces of me fit together better.
“Why don’t you try—” STOP!
“Have you thought about—?” STOP!
“If I were you, I’d—” STOP!
I’ve had well-meaning people complete each one of those statements. Many times. It only simplifies what is complex, and not in a helpful way. It negates the entire conversation. It isolates the person with the mental health condition. You don’t understand.
It only increases the chances of the next check-in to go as follows:
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“No. I really want to know. How are you really doing?”
“Fine.”
A pat on the back for you. Now the chat can move on to something more enjoyable. Your “crazy” cat. That new show on Netflix. Are Ben and Jennifer—oh, yeah, “Bennifer”—actually going to make it?
Sure. They’re fine, too.
As a postscript, I'll say that reading and learning about eating disorders may help you understand and support your friend or family member. I'm cautious about this recommendation. We all know how Googling anything medical may lead to misinformation or may offer dire and overly broad statements that don't apply to particular individuals. I spent ten minutes searching "how to support a person with an eating disorder" and had to stop. Despite clicking on government-related posts, I still found inaccurate information and advice that made me cringe. This article is okay though it still raised issues for me. Perhaps the best thing to do is to ask the person directly, "How can I support you? What helps? What doesn't?"
Ask.
They may shrug you off, but it sure beats asking nothing and having the person think you are yet another person shrugging first, their struggle being something taboo.
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