Helping Others While Struggling — Transcription
Hi, everyone! I’m back for another, Talk It Out Tuesday and I have a great question from you all that I’m going to provide an answer I’m really excited about! So the question is “how do you show up for somebody in your life that might be struggling with a mental health issue or stress when you’re also suffering yourself?” So this is a great question, because right now I think we’re all suffering at a certain level. Some more than others, but there’s a lot of transitions. There’s a lot of losses happening, whether it’s the loss of a person, the loss of future plans, the loss of the life that was before COVID-19. So it’s really a tough time for everyone as we all know. So this is really a relevant question, because again, I think we’re all suffering at some point, and it’s really important to figure out how to help others when you’re also suffering.
So the first thing that I’ll say is I’d love to compare this to when you’re on a flight and the flight attendant asks an adult with a child with them to put on your mask before you put on the child’s. So there’s a reason for this. If the adult were to try to put the mask on the child first, they would most likely lose consciousness because of the loss of oxygen. So at that point, they’re really of use to nobody and endangering themselves so similar to mental health, if you’re not okay, you’re not going to be able to help anyone else in your life. So the first thing to do is to set those boundaries. If you’re feeling really under and you can’t help someone, it’s okay to say that, or it’s okay to try and help them in a way where you’re not taking from your own mental health.
So for example, if somebody is struggling and you’re just not there to help them, you can always say, you know, I really think you should reach out to a professional. It takes it off of you where you’re not putting all this effort into trying to help someone else when you’re not okay. And it also gives them guidance to how they can help themselves. So that’s the first thing I would say is to set those boundaries and know when you’re not, okay, know your triggers, know what your stressors are, know what your body tells you when you’re stressed so you can understand when you don’t think you’re okay. So if somebody does reach out to me to ask for help, I’m not going to be able to be of use to them until I get myself. Okay. And that brings me into my next point is make sure you’re taking care of yourself first.
So make sure that you’re doing self care or you’re getting counseling yourself. Just figuring out what you can do to help yourself get into a better place before you help others. If you’re not okay yourself and everyone understands that and no one’s going to be upset with you. So you don’t always have to be the caretaker and you don’t always have to assume that role. So hopefully that helps. And I look forward to your questions again for next Tuesday, and I hope you have a great week. Thank you!
