Supportive Friends

The Blind Girl by Sir John Everett Millais

Backstabbing Friends by Stormchild:

“Something I've noticed as the years go by: "I've always maintained that you don't know who's a friend until you're facing a crisis; then the people who stand by you are friends, those who cut and run are not. Over time, it seems there are more and more who cut and run. And of those who don't, entirely too many seem to be "Charity Preeners", primarily interested in helping so they will have something to brag about to others. Not a good sign, sociologically. Plain old decency seems to be a very scarce commodity these days.” 

I’d like to editorialize on your comment, Stormchild, without putting words in your mouth or misusing your comment. I could write about friends who stand by us during crisis, or friends who are charitable because it’s fashionable, or fair-weather friends who are only there when times are good (or only when times are bad. Some people get off on having the inside scoop on misfortune).

I’d like to write about an interesting phenomenon, though: the idea that the average person is incapable of supporting a friend’s struggles---that every problem we face should be referred to an authority; i.e.: therapist, because we don’t know how to Feed and Care for one another Properly. It’s as if we’ve abdicated ourselves of responsibility by out-sourcing empathy, compassion, and support.

Excessive reliance on therapy may lead to dissolution of communal inter-reliance. In my perception, there’s a change a-foot and it impacts community in subtle ways, dissolving social cohesion and trapping people in an adolescent conception of friendship. Now that therapy has been de-stigmatized (at least for most American people), we rely on external authorities to have all the answers to life’s mysteries.

For those who only have time for the short version, you can stop reading now. For the long version, read on:

When common decency dictates contact, I query myself: “Why am I hesitant calling so-and-so? She’s dealing with so many problems right now.” Which is exactly why people are reluctant to make a phone call or visit so-and-so: she’s dealing with so many problems right now. We seem to be increasingly reluctant to extend sympathy, especially when someone is in pain. (Or is that merely a subjective perception now that I’m an older woman? Is society fragmenting; or am I reacting to marginalization as an older woman?)

It's tough in American society to talk with friends heart-to-heart. If we dare bring up personal challenges, the first thing people say is, "Have you seen a therapist? No? Why not? Do you really believe you don’t need one ‘cuz we had a neighborhood emergency meeting last night and everyone agrees: you need therapy. Especially since you don’t think you do. Here, we passed the hat at our last meeting and we’re donating your co-payment. Now stop messin’ up our day with your complaints.”

One cyber-friend told me that the perception of Americans in her country is that we run for a therapist if our toast falls on the floor, butter side down.

It concerns me that people are losing confidence in themselves, medicalizing every lousy situation life brings our way. As if we're supposed to feel good all the time or be mentally impervious to bad shit happening to good folks. What strikes me is that outsourcing support lets people OFF THE HOOK. Instead of struggling with a friend, we offload responsibility to therapists, which keeps the friendship shallow and hinders the development of reciprocal bonds. People seem to be getting the idea that a friend's struggles belong in the therapist's office---not in the friendship relationship.

Excessive reliance on therapy can be disempowering on an individual and group basis, like running to an authority whenever we feel bad, anxious, or uncertain. I believe we're losing an opportunity to increase social bonds by empathizing with a friend's suffering; and becoming rather lazy about digging inside ourselves for experiential wisdom. I believe that conversation and joint efforts to support people while they do their own work, has been and is essential to healthy connections within a society.

We want our friendships trouble-free because we sure don’t want be affected by a friend’s bad energy thus attracting misery into our own lives. This is an adolescent definition of friendship rather than a maturing and deepening understanding of the vicissitudes of life.

An enabler or a friend?

I’m a listener. The kind of woman people visit just to say “Hi”. We enter my living room, in total privacy, where a handy box of Kleenex is pre-arranged on the end table. Just in case. Just in case either she or I break down in tears.

Life is painful. Life is joyful. Life is.

By the time we’ve finished talking, the unspeakable holding her hostage had been spoken. I ddidn'treact. I didn't blame or judge, nor did I take responsibility for a friend’s problem, whatever it may have been. And really, fixing the problem isn’t what they wanted anyway. They wanted a friend who would listen, empathize, and bear their struggles with them. They’d fix their own problems and if they couldn't, they’d call a therapist. Every community has a book of yellow pages, and word-of-mouth spreads fast when a therapist is competent and respected. It spreads even faster if the therapist isn't.

My daughter once told me I was a shame-magnet. She wasn’t accusing me of being a prisoner of shame, but a person who invited people to release their shame. Shamed people are sensitive to the slightest grimace on a listener’s face, looking in their eyes to see if you'll validate their suspected unworthiness. If you’re uncomfortable with vulnerability or unable to tolerate other people’s pain, they will silence themselves in two seconds flat. Were they as terrible as they felt themselves to be after betraying their values and beliefs? Was she a shameful mother because she loved her gay child when everyone in the community shunned him? Was he a shameful man because he could not forgive abusive parents?

Shame. Shame. Shame on our unwillingness to bear one other’s shame.

It disturbs me how deskilled people feel themselves to be in creating intimate and bonding friendships. There are many reasons for this and I haven’t come up with all of them but I get the feeling that people see themselves as incompetent to support a friend’s struggles. We have overvalued therapeutic intervention and devalued friendship. We’re afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, thus isolating a victim even more by saying or doing nothing because we’re uncertain. We don’t trust ourselves. If by chance, we meet this person on the street corner, we excuse ourselves by mumbling a few words about "needing to leave ‘cuz we have an appointment", rather than giving them a silent hug or taking a few moments to listen. Or, the rudest thing of all: suggesting therapy.

Empathy requires a willingness to suffer. Not a distancing from a friend like a professional must do, but a sincere willingness to hurt because they hurt. I see a reluctance to become involved in one another’s lives as if we’re supposed to be self-sufficient entities never depending on others or allowing others to depend on us. We turn reciprocal friendships into self-serving relationships because we don’t wanna be bothered with the burdens of intimacy; resulting in shallow friendships and in a circular way, preventing us from sharing our struggles, too. We isolate others because we are afraid of their pain and we isolate ourselves because we believe other people are indifferent or don't want to be bothered.

Please don’t mishear my concerns about therapeutic support. I am not suggesting a listening ear will cure mental illness. What I see is an abdication of social responsibility by deferring to therapeutic authorities when what our friends may actually require is compassion and empathy on a friendship basis. Not a professional one.

In fact, the extension of compassion and empathy bonds people together.

The best friends supporting me during a life crisis, were those who cared for me, treated me with kindness (not like a leper who was gonna ruin the lunch party), and reminded me time and time again that they were always there to listen. They showed up without waiting for me to call, carrying gifts like a pretty container of bath salts, home-roasted coffee beans, a book they loved, a bouquet of flowers, or in the case of my cyber-friends---a box of Oreos. One friend gathered fruit from her orchard, handpicked and selected as an expression of her love and concern for me.

And they listened. And they listened. And they listened some more.

Some people suggest we listen three times to someone’s trubbles, and then stop listening entirely. Once someone has cried three times, we’re enabling them if we let them cry four times. Or five. Well, that makes me a criminal-enabler-in-the-first-degree because some of my friends have cried a hundred times before feeling ‘cleansed’ enough to stop.

Friendship is a responsibility.

Though life is unpredictable and nobody deserves to be harmed, it does seem that whatever goes around, comes around. For years, I listened and offered comfort and support to friends and family, never expecting I would be on the receiving end one day.

And then I was.

And there they were. With casseroles and Kleenex.

So I’ve come up against an oddity in our society: our fear, as friends, to say or do something wrong because we aren’t professional psychologists. That lay support is suspect because The Blind Are Leading the Blind, as the pejorative cliché goes.

Which is destructive to social bonds if we shrink back, becoming dependent on outside authorities to fix friend’s problems so we can enjoy Happy Lunches and Jimmy Choo shoe-shopping---a total abdication of the responsibility of friendship. 

We don’t need to ‘fix’ one another’s burdens. Just witness. Cry, suffer, and grieve their losses in the bones of our very being. This is what people need and desire most. To have someone care when caring is a painful thing to do.

A therapist is a professional resource best qualified to treat serious mental problems; but therapists will never replace the healing power of friendship. When someone willingly and without motive other than love and respect, chooses to bear our burdens with us, they are validating our worth. Telling us we matter. Which may be the most important thing any human being could ever do for others, or for themselves.

Hugs,

CZ

P.S. I hope people don’t leap to a generality and accuse me of ‘Devaluing and Discarding’ professional counseling or psychiatric research. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is reactionary, polarizing, and unfortunately, all-too-common. My intent is to ‘think critically’ and encourage others to do likewise.