I posted my post about depression from last Monday, in The Virtual Tavern and one of the members, Ros mentioned about her friend who is very down at the moment. She spoke about the difficulty of helping someone who is down or depressed when you yourself suffer from depression and are just trying to get by.
I am probably one of the first people to want to cheer someone up and nothing makes me happier than making people laugh etc. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood and so will avoid social occasions because I know it's almost expected of me now to be the funny one. Some people will even introduce me before I meet new people "oh Neil's coming tonight, you'll like him he's dead funny". NO, please don't do that because now I feel a pressure to perform and it might be one of those days when I just don't have it in me (that's not often as I learned the art of "turning it on|" during my 25 years DJing). BUT should I not really be feeling it and just want a normal night letting someone else be the town clown, I now have an expectation from the people I've never met, to be funny!
When you want to help someone else who is feeling down, when you yourself also suffer from mental health problems, this is my analogy...
If you imagine life to be like a vast ocean, we are all thrown overboard and have to do our best to make it to shore in one piece. Nobody knows how far away the shore is or if anybody will come along to help us so we are all just doing our best to stay afloat and make it to the next day and the next and so on. We all have days when we want to give up and don't see an end in sight but something keeps us going. You look around and find some like-minded people who are either doing the same as you are managing to keep it together or they are doing slightly better and may have even made themselves a raft. Some people see those with rafts and are bitter and jealous because they wanted a raft, they didn't want to build one themselves, they just want one. This is called jealousy and it's not a good trait. Now you can either become consumed with jealousy and hate the people with a raft, or you can use that as inspiration to spur you on and look for bits of driftwood to make your own raft.
If you really want to make the best of your situation you would surround yourself with successful people who you aspire to be like. Those who already have a raft and are now building a shelter on their raft. You can learn a lot from these people and become a better person by following their lead.
After riding the storm and getting through turbulent waters, you manage to find yourself two inflatable armbands, that take the pressure off and help you stay afloat. By no means are you in great shape and you know if you lose an armband (help someone else) it will be more difficult? But see someone who is struggling to stay afloat and you decide to help them. So you go over to them and grab hold of their arm and give them one of your armbands for the other arm (offer emotional support).
After a while of treading water and having to paddle a bit harder than before, you look around and notice they aren't paddling with their free arm and have stopped kicking their feet. Instead, you can feel them pulling you down and becoming a heavy, weight. on your arm. This is typically when someone is very down and no matter what you try they seem to prefer to be negative and now look at the positives.
You might even point this out to them and some people will apologise and then start to paddle again, bringing them (and you) back up to the surface. But others will take offense at having this pointed out and even become quite aggressive about it. Even after it's been pointed out they still don't want to help and do their share. Now, this doesn't mean you necessarily have to take your armband from them (stop being a friend), but you may need to make the decision to let go of their arm so you can paddle with both arms and let them keep themselves afloat for a bit (distance yourself). I have been in this situation a few times and I am still friends with those people, but I no longer spend as much time with them as I used to.
Also, some people don't want saving. They actually enjoy the drama of it all and others are attention seekers and like to constantly shout for help as if they are drowning. Then it turns out they can actually stand up in their part of the ocean and aren't drowning at all.
What you might then decide to do, is get yourself in a good position (on your own raft), and then every now and then pop over to make sure they are okay and give them a little help to stay afloat. Be careful not to let them jump on your raft though, especially if it is already unstable as all this will do is thrown you both back overboard and eventually, they will drag you down with them. So there comes a point when you have to decide to sink or swim and put yourself first.
I try to do this now with people that I know always bring me down. I limit my time with them so that it doesn't start to affect me adversely. It's not being selfish it's just self-preservation. In the film, Titanic rose didn't love Jack any less by letting him go and saving herself, and if Jack really loved her he wouldn't want them both to drown either. So sometimes you need to know when it's time to let go ;-)
It doesn't make you a bad person putting yourself first. It's important, you can't fill someone else's cup from an empty vessel. If you keep yourself topped up then you are much more willing to pop round and fill others' cups, but if you are close to empty you are no good to anyone.
There is a reason that on the aircraft safety demonstrations they tell you to fit your own oxygen mask before helping others. So. if you take one thing from this blog it's to spend some time every day on self-care. That can be taking 10 minutes in the morning for a quiet moment and a cup of coffee, or booking yourself a facial/massage, whatever bring you joy. You are always going to be in a much better position to help others if you feel good about yourself.
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