I need some advice in terms of helping a friend

Hey everyone,

I just need some help and advice in a situation with a friend Im helping out,to sum up the situation,he has a lot of depression and anxiety symptoms,even borderline PTSD due to trauma from the past.He had a lot of horrible things done to him,to the point that life is hell for him,and while talking to him,he seems to suddenly have these sudden chains of negative thoughts, where he starts talking about ending their own life, giving up and various other issues, and I’m stuck fighting this mongol horde of negative thoughts.I told them about grounding techniques and how they work. Where the moment I see a panic attack, I tell him to ground himself. Via using ground techniques that I reference to him. And it was going well. Until a few days ago, where he suddenly said-in the mid of a panic attack-that every time I tell him he has “a panic attack” he feels that I’m telling him to shut the fuck up. I explained to him that no, I’m not doing that, and it’s to make him aware of what’s happening, so he can calm down. Another issue is that-SOMETIMES-if I let say I don’t respond, he gets paranoid. Let me use a funny example.I went out to take a nuclear shit. When I came back feeling like a million bucks,my guy thought I ghosted him,I told him hey man calm down.I was going to the bathroom.he then started saying that I should let him die and asked why am I not letting him die.and him saying that statement(has been happening recently)part of me, wants to fucking lose my shit,and give him some drill Sargent level of speech,where I tell him that he needs to get his act together,but I fear I might lose him and I cant live with that to be honest.and to add to that,if I give tough love,I might sound like a lot of shitty people that tell other people that say “ThEY nEEd tO HElp ThEMSElveS” and think that self improvement is the holy grail of mental health and basically be in compassionate and cruel to people.and I hate those guys,I fucking despise them,I shit on them when they take it too far with people.I hope you guys can help me out in this situation.

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“Tough love” is often overrated, and even more often not even love. Judgment and self-righteousness is often explained away as tough love. A legitimate expression of tough love is when a parent does what is necessary to keep their child safe.

Tough love towards someone who is experiencing mental/emotional problems, is very likely to exacerbate symptoms. He sounds like he is quite a handful and desperately needs professional help. Informing him that he is having a panic attack really isn’t helpful. He already knows when he’s having one. Instead, remind him that he is safe, and you will keep him company until he feels better.

The best thing you can do for him is to convince him that he needs help, and you will support him as much as you can.

Thanks for responding wings, I have to genuinely agree with you on this one, I hate when people say “tough love” as well as I said in my post before, but here comes the major problem with my friend, my friend has zero access to professionals and lives in a really emotionally abusive environment, he knows that he needs help, in fact I convinced him to do so before.so yeah its a bit of a shit situation to be honest.

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He’s very fortunate to have you for a friend. You might be able to help him keep his sanity.

It seems that the best thing to do in this situation is to endure this situation until he gets professional help. But I have to say thanks for the compliment, means a lot.

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