help-a-friend

[kuychi]

I have a friend who is very sad, I can tell it by the way he looks at me; by the way he speaks, how he lowers his head in shame, avoids mirrors, and prefers to be confined to 4 walls because he doesn’t want to face the world. He is a good person of good feelings, but like any other human being has many many defects

this problem he has had for years, and to an extent I feel very guilty because I have known of this problem for years too, but we never spoke about it for it was shameful for both of us (out of respect for him I won’t mention what the actual problem is, if I did he would never know anyway, but I don’t feel comfortable sharing the dark secrets of his soul without his permission, it just isn’t my secret to tell), this "problem" has only increased with the years but it seemed to be going at a steady but slow pace, however, in the last eight months the time bomb exploded, it has gotten to the point where my dearest friend is very unhappy. It has escalated to the point of him having to do something about it now or never. For his own mental health

for as long as I have known him I have (half-heartedly) tried to talk to him about it, but he always refused so I came to refused touching the subject to, but today, today was the day when he let it out, and spoke to me without reservations about his torment, I don’t know why he said what he said (now finally after all this time) maybe he just can’t take it anymore

SHAME, thats the word he used to describe his problem, he feels so ashamed and unworthy as a result of his "problem" which causes him such anxiety, such trouble that he consoles himself by doing the very thing that makes him ashamed in the first place. Much like the drunken man in the little prince, who drank to forget that he had a drinking problem.

He does "it" to make better the pain that doing "it" causes him. I’m sad too, because I watch him struggle and hate himself more and more, and grow ever more bitter ever more distant.

I asked him why you don’t try to break the cycle there must be some way, yet again his answer was the same SHAME. the shame he feels impedes him from seeking help, for that would mean having to acknowledge his problem, having to say " yes I have a problem yes I do need help" is the hardest thing for him

I feel pain when I see him surrounded by people that love him, while he is feeling alone in this world, when he wears that sad expression like asking "why, why am I sick like this", but most of all I feel pain when I see him hate himself when he avoids people that want to help him. When he inflicts pain to his own soul more than anyone else does (even the ones who judge him). When he talks sometimes I know that he sees no good qualities in himself, and I feel pain being so helpless to him. Because I know just as well as he does that nothing will change until he decides to change things himself.

Sorry I have to be the teller of such sad tale, but I want to help him, I need to help him and I just don’t know how to.

Anyone else has experienced something similar? Any advice on what I can do to make things better?

How can i heal his soul?

[Darklight]

Kuychi- you can't heal his soul. I wish and hope I'm wrong. Healing is his job. But he is lucky to have you as a friend indeed

All you can do is show him options, gently and when you feel the time is right. And if he thinks about making an appointment to see someone, offer to go with him or take him there just so that bit is easier. Sometimes the first step is hardest

And if he does make an initial appointment and cancels it, apparently this happens a lot and doesn't put health professionals off too much if they're any good.

Like so many things it can take persistence and multiple tries before someone gets into the habit of looking after themselves. If he doesn't get it right the first time, he can always try again til it works

[Optimystic]

I have been through similar to what you described... I have had it all, lost it all... been to rock bottom more than once, though I've heard tales of rockier bottoms.. anxiety is a real fucking hell... ppl abuse that word almost as much as the word love

I would recommend encouraging for your friend, a healthy diet if this is not the case... the right nutes help by body make what it needs to be balanced... Pain and pleasure are lifes biggest motivators, two others that fall into that category of HUGE are creativity and responsibility... I've seen these whip all sorts of people back into the magic of life, but ultimately the hardest part is realizing they have to decide for themselves... When one is buried in pain, in those crushing moment, it seems as there is no way anyone else can possibly experience the same pain, but its the same for all of us who struggle with depression and anxiety... The reality is, the most successful, so called "happy" people, have just as much or more pain and responsibility ... and part of our duty is to transmute those emotions into our lives creatively... any negative can be turned into a positive... I know this for sure

I think you must discuss with your friend about forgiving himself... it sounds like thats not easy for him, but there is a point where, once that decision is made, the individuals entire perspective of the world changes... also, if you can sorta sneak in a way to pick at their creativity, you will be a magical force in his or her life, not that you aren't already.. any type of project that requires more than one participant, is magic in itself...

He is lucky... everyone forgot about me except my mom and dad and sister.. its a really dark feeling, when you are isolated and absent of that feeling of connection.. you are that flickering flame in his life.. don't ever give up!

Some little one liners that I can't say were the cure for me, but actually "Stuck" were when someone told me sincerely "You are not alone"... and a recommendation that I should "Spend a day on the sidelines" if it is such the case that his mind is filled with that noise/voices...

Now aside from my experience, I lived with a guy for a year.. I rented him a room,,, he was virtually homeless.. .staying in an ex friend of mines rental property with no power or utilities... no car, just a handful of "acquaintences"... I spent a year trying to help this guy... it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life to pour so much energy into that, but he was very self destructive... by the end of that year I was so depressed that I began blaming him and surely he was part of it, but I was wrong about being able to change someone... the best times we had as friends was when I wasn't trying to change him, but just being a friend.. it ended disastrously with one of his emotional fits... It wasn't til then I realized what he needed most... anyhow, best wishes for your friends health

Edited January 12, 2013 by Spine Collector

[IndianDreaming]

Hey kuychi - In the mental health first aid courses i've done, they really teach the 'don't fluff around the subject' kind of attidude when people are severely depressed - especially where guilt and shame are prime factors. If you think your friend is at the snapping point, and possibly dangerously so (i.e. suicide) then just come out and ask the question. "Have you ever thought about harming yourself?" - It's amazing how hard this question is to ask, but for the person on the other end, it can be the lifeline of communication they needed to spill their story and let it all come out. I'm not sure if your friend is at that state - but for me I don't take the chance - I've lost a few friends that I later realised would still be here if I had been more observant, recognised their depression and get them some help.

Others may say that this approach is confronting and this subject should be broached with care - I dissagree - confrontation forces the issues to the surface where they can be dealt with, but you need to be there, or have someone there in case the answer is "Yes, I've thought about killing my self lots of times" <- this is when you don't leave them, stay the night, ring the help lines and get counselling immediately - don't take their brush asdie words of "oh I'll be fine, I just want to go home and sleep" or whatever, because they have just openly admitted to you their thoughts on the subject, and when left alone, these thoughts can spiral out of control into actions that could be avoided.

I hope your friend isn't anywhere near this stage - and I hope my post isn't drastic and out of context - but when you've been bitten by suicide a few times - you take no chances.

[CβL]

There's a lot of little things too that can help someone to remember who they are, and most importantly - that life is worth living. I'm not going to give any abstract advice today.

A really simple one, is to give this person a single plant to look after. There was a large experiment where they put plants in the rooms of the elderly at a retirement village - half of them were told they were responsible for watering the plant, the other half were told to leave it to the staff to water. After a couple of weeks - they did a head-count, and found that those who were put in charge of the plants were mostly alive, while the other group was quite shorter than before.

Now I'm not suggesting anything other than plants are good, and they can help to heal. Preferably a plant that cannot die will be best.

I also have to echo that true help comes from within, and self-forgiveness is probably the first step. It is never too late to change - but some people have a harder time realizing this than others. It might be useful trying to emphasize this point, that starting something now, is better than never starting it at all (try and find a nice story or allegory that gets the point across - maybe I can help).

Lastly, if you can help to get him away for the day - then it will be easier to change his thoughts. Some people are strong enough to change their thoughts while still in the same surroundings, but others need help. The way the brain works roughly is that it associates certain thoughts with certain environments - the old "why did I walk into the kitchen again?" being an example of your thoughts being tied to another room, and by not consciously bringing it along, you forgot. If you have the time to take him, or even suggest a forest walk for him (slow pace, and focusing on nature itself - being observant, silent and concentrating on the sound of the birds and insects) - then this can start the cogs in his brain turning again - sometimes this might be enough to kick-start something great.

Another final thing (perhaps the most useful of all), is that potentially you can help him to write his thoughts out on paper. Help him to write his feelings and actions out, and some goals . Putting it on paper makes a HUUUUGE difference to me whenever I want to do something. It's a real struggle to start writing, but once you start, it's very freeing. One way you might do it is (most of these things aren't about me, for anyone who was worried) :

At the moment:

* I'm not exercising

* I eat unhealthy food

* I smoke a pack a day

* I go to bed too late and wake up too late

* I don't have a job

* I have huge trouble relaxing

In the near future:

* I will start with 5 pushups, 5 situps, 5 slow squats every morning, and every week, I will increase the number by 1

* I will research healthy food. I will eat a small bowl of frozen vegetables before lunch and dinner, and I will only drink water.

* I will cut down by one more cigarette from each pack, each week - by physically throwing them out of the pack and burning it on a brick in the garden (symbolism increases your self-power)

* I will turn off my computer every single day at 10:30pm or before, otherwise I will slap for every minute I miss the deadline. I will set two alarms, five minutes apart - 1 hour before I currently wake up, and I will stay awake even if I'm tired.

* I will research jobs. I will sort the jobs into 3 categories (jobs I can do now, jobs I might be able to do now, jobs I can't do yet) - and I will write down on refill paper why I put the job into each category, and what I would need to learn or do to be able to move that job into the 'jobs I can do now' category. I will write a CV for myself, and I will be kind to myself while writing it (as if you were writing it for a friend).

* I will spend 5 minutes a day practicing meditation (breathing slowly, and counting each breath from 1-10 and repeating. If I think a thought - I will acknowledge I strayed from concentration, and resume counting. If I forget where I am, I'll start from one again.)

In the far future:

* I will be exercising every day, and I will keep slowly improving until I'm fit and healthy

* I will understand which diets are healthy, and I will have phased out my old unhealthy habits for healthy new ones

* I will be a non-smoker, or I will smoke herbs on the nights of the weekend only.

* I will wake up every day at 8am, and my bed-times will allow me to sleep for at least 7 hours a night.

* I will have a job that's not as bad as being a salt-mine slave, and will be working towards something more enjoyable and better.

* I will add a minute a week to my meditation time, and I will meditate every time I feel stressed and want to do a bad habit.

 

Putting your feelings onto paper must be done OFTEN (maybe once every week). Not once. Because he will stumble. He will make mistakes. He will perhaps even go backwards. But making an attempt, is a million times harder than doing nothing - it is something to be slightly proud of. Putting it on paper is a way to be honest with yourself, even though it doesn't feel like it. If he didn't quite achieve every short-term goal - then write that on paper too! Write that "I achieved a start of the short-term goal, but didn't quite complete it". I will modify the goal to be more achievable, or I will try again and practice the meditation more to keep myself in control more this time.

Anyway, best of luck - I hope your friend can realize that it's not too late to change. As my grandpa once said to me: Sometimes banging your head into a wall allows you to realize that you shouldn't bang your head into a wall.

Also, make sure to keep looking after yourself. You might be the lighthouse your friend is relying on - don't enter into the dark - let him find his way out with your light.

Edited January 13, 2013 by CβL

[MikeyMagic]

Feelings of shame/guilt are parasitic thought forms that can be difficult to dislodge.

They are linked to feelings of fear of losing love/fear love is lost.

They also dis-empower a person from feeling self-love. This is a core issue.

Ignighting the fire of his passions will bring reconection with self love.

This guy has the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JoshuaVoiles?v=P0lVPB6BTxI

[-YT-]

Very touching posts, kinda hit home as have been dealing with similar issues over the past 18months or so with depression & anxiety. Really like what spine mentioned about being a true friend those connections can make a world of difference just having someone to talk to or be with, knowing that your still apart of that something

[Optimystic]

These are all TREMENDOUS posts! what a community

I wanted to add to one of CBL's thoughts... I was reading a book a few years back titled "Permission to succeed"... This book was mainly about self sabotage... It went into explain , how the average Joe really already knows how to be successful, but what the average joe doesn't possess is the ability to counter those inner voices and pains.... He goes on to explain how no one can be more cruel to ourselves than we are... Think about that... Who knows your buttons more than you? Your own innervoice, which can often be perceived as a demon, can really say some cruel things that are felt on every level... for example "I am ugly, I am fat, I am useless, I would be better off dead... I can never " "... I hate myself... You can hear other ppl say these things and maybe you'll get fired up, but when you hear this in your own voice, its enough to shut you down...

He went on to say how the realized that success anorexia is exactly like regular annorexia... how ppl with this disease, tend to hate themselves so much, or their appearance, that they force themselves to live on water and bread crumbs... there were examples so bad, that someone forced themselves to eat out of a dog's bowl, because they felt so invaluable to themselves....

From this book I gained a powerful writing exercise... though I only did this one time, I found this to be extremely powerful and the effects have stuck with me, come to realize it...

The author says to take out a piece of paper and divide it into two sides.... now on one side... bring out your bad side... let your pen flow... write down everything negative you can ever think about yourself... and let the cruelness roll... don't stop until you fill up that page and continue on the other side if you need to... .... Then... of course.. find a positive affirmation for each of those negative ideas....

For example , if one of them was "I am ugly" then the other should be something like "I accept myself for who I am and anyone who loves me will too"... I think you can help with this, but its amazing how easy it is to come up with positives once the negatives are down on paper, it kinda kills the dogma about it...

This is for anyone.. I just remembered that just now... Im not sure if this is the best for your friend, but use your best judgement, as you know him better than all of us...

again, best wishes with that... Im not sure how much this all can help your friend, but expressing your feelings here helps everyone here I believe @ I realize most of us got into plants, partly as a means to help us with things...

Edited January 13, 2013 by Spine Collector

[kuychi]

Thanks so much for all the posts guys! And the great advise

There is some really good things in here, specially about writing our own feelings, that has helped myself in the past, growing his own plants and maybe even having a pet could help him

I think I will start by helping him forgive himself that is the first step now, I’ll try and get him to understand that the past is behind and although he made mistakes and wrong decisions, it doesn’t matter anymore, as long as he is trying to fix himself, if he is trying to make it better he is already a new man changing his circumstances.

im sure he will start feeling a bit better soon, he wants to change his ways, he' s said to me he’s afraid of failing, of disappointing the people he loves, I told him that is much better to try and fail than to never try

One of the very important things you have made me realize is that I can’t heal his soul as much as I’d like to, only he can do it only he can change things. He has to take the first step, I can only support him through the journey, and I’m going to help him get rid of all the bad things he has stored over the years, so he can fill his soul with happiness

Thanks a lot, you have helped me heaps

[Alchemica]

...Resonate with a lot of what has been said in this thread...

Hope you and your friend are making some 'progress'. Self-defined - if nothing else, that is.

.

This was shown to me by some friends some time ago and it might be worth a watch

 

hope we can all get some altitute to our attitudes

Best wishes to everyone

[LikeAshesWeFade]

I love these sort of topics.. brings out the genuine individuals!

I can relate soo so much to your friends situation dude.. I myself am living with shame/guilt and lack of self-respect. Although I have admitted my problems and sought help both within this community and with counsellors/psych's. It's a daily struggle to fight off those demons and keep that chin held high..

All my close friends have faded away, off living their lives, getting married and starting a family of their own.. If it wasn't for my daughter and the support of this community, I honestly don't think I'd be posting this today..

Your friend definitely needs you, just make sure you look after yourself too dude.. sleep well, eat properly and although it's fucking hard when it's a close friend.. try to not let their issues get to you too much. You are doing your best and I'm sure he knows that too.. There's nothing more destructive to a depressed person than to lose their connection with friends and family because their becoming a burden to everyone..

I wish the best of luck in your friends recovery and I hope that he see's the light sooner than later.

Your a life saver bro.. don't ever forget that!

Edited January 19, 2013 by LikeAshesWeFade

[SunChaser]

Oddly enough, overwhelming feelings of guilt & shame sound pretty good to me personally. Maybe (hopefully) it’s a sign that they haven’t been consumed by the dark side entirely and still have a faint sense of purpose and a desire to thrive, somewhere within there mind.

Its when ya stop feeling anything of any significance, except for contempt against the people who brought you here, without having any realistic understanding of what ‘here’ actually is, when it starts to go really dark, in my experience anyway.

To tell the truth, I don’t know if there is actually a no fail sure way to bring someone back from a dark reality, and if there is, I’m fairly certain that the species homo sapien hasn’t entirely worked it out yet. I guess the majority of us get by just fine and can easily fulfil their sense of purpose by just collecting material items, socialising & breeding. People just keep fucking and bringing more & more of us creatures to this place, without any idea of what the purpose of this place actually is, with the full knowledge that anyone that is bought to this world only has one inevitable destiny, ‘death’!

Some people are lucky and can trick their minds into believing in god(s), spirits or the paranormal. But I seriously doubt anyone really actually believes there’s an infinite existence of pure euphoria after we finished our ride on this crazy arse roller coaster. If you could peer deep into the subconscious of these individuals, I’m quite positive you would find that they are only to aware of there one true destiny, that dark reality that every person that comes to this place must deal with eventually.

Family, friends, work, healthy diet, exercise, wealth, drugs, or whatever the fuck your thing is, may all be effective ways to hide from the reality of what is. But really, is that not just procrastinating?

Anyway, like I said, I really have no idea how (or even know if its possible) to bring someone back from a dark reality and to be honest, I don’t really know if it’s the most important question at this stage of human evolution either.

Personally, I think the more important question is, who’s at fault when shit really does hit the fan. If you choose to sacrifice your own happiness to try and bring a deeply depressed person some happiness, then isn’t there a real possibility of not actually doing any good for the individual and just dragging yourself into there dark perception of reality in the process?

I mean fuck, I guarantee anyone who comes spends an hour with me to talk about the philosophies of life, ain’t gonna walk away with a more positive perspective of life than when they came. If they kept coming back day after day, it would probably eventually really do their head in.

Its just all one big trip really, life only lasts for a blink of an eye. So many have come before us, and so many will come after us. Yesterday it was someone else’s turn, yet tomorrow it will be someone else’s, only today is ours. Maybe that’s the problem, we spend to much time living in someone else’s past or future, when we should just be living in our own present (in our own here and now). Think about it, feelings of guilt, shame, hate and fear really have no context or power in the human mind that is living in the here and now, for any significant amount of time anyway.

At the end of the day, It ain’t perfect but it’s all we got and all we will ever know, I suppose. Though, even with the knowledge that it won’t last long and the lack of understanding of its meaning, there still is (at least for me) that odd feeling of satisfaction that we had a chance to be part of it, even if you don’t live up to your own expectations of what you are meant to be.

Lol, or maybe I got no idea what I’m taking about, maybe I’m just full of shit and need to find god or some shit.

Anyway, here’s to us all finding what it is we are looking for.

Peace, plant heads.

Edited January 22, 2013 by jabez

[Optimystic]

I've been to that dark place... and I can tell you what happens if you return from you.. you come back with absolutely no identity but you still have will and you still have memories, just numb feelilngs if any towards them... but the mind can always pull itself back together... im not sure If I am fully resolvled to be quite honest... I struggle with alot of ppl in usa and coming here is alot like a vacation for me... and I belive now that vacation should be a part of each day!>.. but in all seriousness, that period in my life almost left me nothing but questions and I will never be the same ever again...

I had the will somehow to pull it altogether.... and the mind is magickal in this regard...

I actually think whatever happened to me was induced by the same effect, trying to help someone who quite honestly seemed to have no intention other than to pull others into the same hole, but he did so quite elegantly ... in a way I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me but I wouldn't have said as much in that time... I think I spent two weeks without uttering a word, no phone calls, not much of anything human about me in that time other than my appearance... Im still amazed that I am here putting complete thoughts together...

as for myth... myth is a construct of ego.. I think the general negative attitude towards myth is primarily due to the forces of abrahamism, which imho are frankly a divisive curse on the planet... perhaps a flawed attempt to bring order to the world , which did not coordinate quite smoothly with the advancement of man and technology...

I used to bash every abrahamist I came in contact with until I had few to no friends left... still im okay with this cause I had to learn something about myself. but now I look at this in an entirely different way... Theists are those who carry myths and believe them to be true, while atheists live with myths and dont' consider them to be true... I think most of the other popular cultural myths which societies lived by and with, were beneficial to coping with life in those times and also in aiding to keep mans spirit in line with nature...

But in the divisive mythos, we have a sort of "Chosen one syndrome" where the individual resides in the archetype of their deity, and makes decisions based on how to treat others and basic morals, according to their assumptions of what their diety would do, rather than really looking around for the best exxamples of cooperation with others and the actual process of evolution... I think this also has the effect of forcing man to choose an identity for their deity, whether that be a masculine or feminine identity, rather than the original intention of uniting the two...Ego was once the most important aspect of human devolopment, it was a key to survival as it relates to our reaction to nature, and everything it throws at us, but ego has evolved into a sort of judgemental video game in far too many popular cultures and civilized societies.. We see rich and poor on a daily basis in our media, and the same trail of emotions... the cokehead in the trailerpark, the cokehead on wallstreet... futher illustratingg that there really isn't much that separates us, nor are any earthy accomplishments enough to make us immune to the basic needs of being a human...

Ultimately, it comes down to us getting back in line with nature... and I believe when we are in line with nature, it removes all the dogma from life and death, as its supposed to be this way... we are meant to be free, and that includes free of dogma and free from fear of the natural cycle which we are a part of.

Freedom, always has been, and always will be, nothing more, and nothing less, than a state of mind.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Spine Collector

[Alchemica]

Hi kuychi, how are you and your friend going?

Feed Your Demons!

I was recently reading a chapter on Compassion Focused Therapy by Paul Gilbert and encountered the following description:

 

….one might engage with the compassionate self and then ‘see in one’s mind’s eye’ a specific aspect of that self which is troublesome. One can imagine oneself when anxious, and practise imagining looking at one’s facial expressions – how we look when anxious – the thoughts and feelings going through our minds. We then just imagine having compassion for that anxious self we see in our mind; how we would like to help, what we like to say. There are similar processes with many aspects of the self, including the angry self, lonely self and self-critical self. If people feel a little overwhelmed by this you simply bring them back to their breathing and refocus on the compassionate self and, when ready, start again. In some ways this follows standard de-sensitisation practice. There is a 1,000-year-old practice that is very similar to this called ‘Feeding Your Demons’ (Allione, 2008). Here the person imagines feeding the troublesome part of the self so that it gets what it wants, and they see how it changes.

 

This intrigued me, so I Googled “Feeding Your Demons” and found the following youtube video which talks a little more about that approach:

 

The method seems similar to the Non-Violent Communication approach Rufus May uses when he talked to the voice of a voice hearer that adamantly wanted to kill her – rather than fight with the voice, Rufus looked at the wants and needs of the voice and how to actually help it out.

Rufus tells the story of this interaction at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SARayODS_90

It turned out that the voice represented the dissociated anger of the voice hearer, and with continued dialogue and understanding, the voice became an ally rather than an enemy.

The Rufus May youtube video also explains how the voice continued to want to express itself independently of the voice hearer, and at one point asked for, and was given by the voice hearer, it’s own facebook account! It turns out that the voice (named Top Dog) now also has its own Twitter account, which I know because I received a tweet from him a few days ago. The tweet read as follows: “Voices hear voices too – we hear you! If you are fed up with us then chances are we are fed up with you too!”

That makes sense to me. Feeding demons sounds scary, and it is true that we have to resist giving the demons what they initially say they want (for example, the death of the voice hearer) but real healing may require finding a way to give them what they really need.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Alchemica