447- Asking for help and support

Grab a cuppa, 1,924 words long entry coming! 

It's Mental Health Awareness Month again and for this, I decided to discuss some topics I seldom addressed - starting with very important steps.

 In the previous entry, I discussed the importance, and a bit of way, in finding a therapist, matched with your needs, and a type of therapy, to pursue our healing path, when we struggle with any mental illness. I explained a bit about the necessity of a diagnosis, to forgo any stigma about seeing therapy, and it's now time for the second part in the important steps. 

This entry will be about asking for help and support. 

I  know from firsthand experience how tough it is to ask for help and support, within and without the medical field ; I know and explained in the first part why it's important to seek for therapy, but another vital component in healing lies outside of therapy : it lies in the social networks we have, or  may need to build, in order to use 'social coping'. One definition which can be read about it is "any interpersonally based stress-management strategy. A person using this type of coping style seeks support from family members, friends, or formal service providers to help him or her through a difficult event or situation." (source : APA dictionary ), and which is an 'adaptive coping mechanism', meaning that it's a positive tool, as opposed to 'maladaptive coping', coping via unhealthy habits and tools.  

Sometimes, asking for family members' support can be tough or impossible, for any number of reasons. These can include that they are the ones responsible for your stress, difficulties, even trauma. You may have cut ties, or still living with them and cannot reach out. In those cases, you'll have to find help elsewhere. 

 Formal service providers include therapists and other medical professionals, which means that therapy is a form of social coping.

My entry may be read about our friends, current or new ones we may meet in the process of seeking for help and support - but, if your case allows, do ask from your spouse or family as well, as the closest persons to you might be able to see things you don't, and provide with a view and more personalized help based on knowing you longer than other people. 

In any case, with or without your family's help, you may need to find additional or full help from your friends, but why, how and when to ask ? You might feel that you'd be a burden, or that they wouldn't know - after all, they're not therapists - or, you may feel you don't know what to say, where to start, your experiences have been overwhelming, or perhaps you're not worthy of help ? 

Let's break those down a bit, shall we ? 

First of all, if you feel unworthy for any reason, you need to unlearn that lie, stat! you're not a monster, you didn't deserve to experience whatever caused this lie to settle in your mind, nor the struggles that come with your mental illness. You deserve and are worthy of receiving help, support, and to heal ; to improve your life conditions and suffer less. 

Secondly, if you're worthy, that means by definition that you wouldn't be a burden. It's simple mathematics. Sure, it may be a heavy topic to share with your loved ones, but that doesn't equal to a burden. You are the one with a burden - one or several mental illness/es, offloading to a person who chooses and accepts to listen to you isn't going to transfer your burden to them, even if they struggle with things themselves, they chose to listen and a problem shared is a problem halved ; so, share the load, because together, we are stronger. I'll develop this concept later. 

Thirdly, you don't know where to start ? that can be indeed tough, especially after weeks, months, or even years of suffering alone, in isolation. Sometimes, all you need, after you asked for support, the person accepting, and coordinated a chat, voice or video call with them, to just let the flow go from what you feel on that moment, and elaborate as you go, and as you answer to questions from your actively-listening supported-to-be. Their question to better understand your situation shows they are actively-listening and although they're not a therapist, they can offer a sympathetic ear, feedback, perhaps a lay-person's advice if you ask for it, company - even virtual - any and all of these can help you, in turn, feel heard, understood, supported, less alone.

Let's see now why, how, when to ask : 

Why ? that one should be simple, to feel heard, understood, supported, less alone, as I said above. To share the load, to reduce the isolation that you can feel when you suffer and think you're the only one in the whole world to feel this way right now. Evidently, the why for getting help from professionals was to get a diagnosis, possibly medication, and medical advice, feedback and learning coping tools in therapy, as seen in the previous entry also applies : to heal, in part or fully, and thus to improve your life.

If your first approach to getting help was through family or friends, they could discuss your options with you and might help you to find information, contact numbers, addresses of therapists for you, if you've been struggling with the queries themselves, or if you never thought of it before and talking brings you to the conclusion that you need therapy but have no clue where to start. 

In some cases, they could come with you to appointments, at least to accompany to and from, and wait for you whilst you're in the practitioners' office, where you wouldn't be allowed due to medical secret. 

If you struggle with everyday tasks due to any of you mental illness/es, they could help out. 

Throughout your healing process, one of the main goals your family and or friends could give encouragement and support, to help you continue getting the help that you need, and not to give up when meeting hurdles, stagnation, discouragement and wanting to quit on therapy - it is here that your loved ones would push you further. 

How ? there are many ways you can ask, based on your needs, such as messaging a friend you trust and say that you need to talk about something that is weighing on you, "can I talk about it with you, now or soon/later?" and possibly coordinate a chat if they're not immediately available. 

Or, you may feel unsafe but not want to talk about the precise topic, and may need a distraction, to talk about something else for the time being. You can do that as well, by the same manner, messaging a friend. 

Healthline has a list of 10 possible phrasings you can use, complied by Sam Dylan Finch. 

Another possibility is by joining social media, and to find peers, people who also struggle with one or several of your mental illness/es :

Facebook has groups, but requires not only an account, but your real name, with which you may feel ok, or not. 

Twitter has # chats and shares - it is there that I found my own peers, in mental health chats, where specific illnesses are discussed, everyone sharing their own experiences and sometimes, relate to one another and go into DM (Direct Messages) and in the best cases, created new friendships - and in due time, expanded to talk about shared hobbies and interests, it doesn't have to be just mental health related. In fact, I'd say that in having those extra topics can help for when you need a distraction instead of support, and for longer-term friendships, even after you no longer support for struggles you overcome. 

Discord, an app that used to be geared towards video gamers who needed to exchange during gaming, became a hug hub of servers for all kinds - I am personally in games and musicians' servers, but there are apparently many servers tagged with mental health. 

Those are mere examples, there may be more - even Instagram has mental health related posts, hashtags ( # ) but I feel that it isn't the best website/app to use, unless you want to share anonymous images with texts, links etc, and for chatting, to use their own direct messages, either in type chat or voice, as there are no public chats or groups within Instagram. 

Wherever you may find your peers, being part of them means that you share similar experiences. They can bring you more specified 

support, possibly advice based on personal experience, and listen to how you're feeling, either in a public chat, or in private, and may bring you an additional circle of friends, even though it may start small and be based on mutual support at first ; 

They can offer empathy and understanding, based on shared and divergent struggles, 

All this, by sharing experiences, information, suggestions of all kinds, for example self-care and support options.

I'll quote here a relevant passage from entry 206, pertaining to another aspect of "how to talk", more specifically, when talking about potentially self-triggering things. My therapist had 

suggested I practice a mindful self-awareness when the situation arises and have a small inner dialogue to decide

1. I either feel too fragile and want to protect myself. I can reply that I wish not to discuss it that moment. 
2. or, I can decide to talk openly & un-apologetically about my feelings and traumas (since I am a MH activist now),  to take the conscious risk of feeling sick and that each time I do this, it'll be very similar to the exposure part of my CBT for social anxieties and that in time, I would get less often sick, and less intensely. 

This advice, added with my CBtherapist's advice to talk about this traumatic aspect of my past gradually and to limit my audience, at least at first, to 3 people, make up a good set of guidelines for me to follow and work towards reducing these physical effects of such difficult discussions. 

Let me finish this entry , and add that If you're in crisis, and need immediate support that friends may not be able to offer, you can contact a number of charities and hotlines. I'll share here again the same link as previously, Nicole's ultimate directory for my UK readers. 

For USA readers, NAMi's list. 

Every country has their own, so you'll have to find them if you're not in UK/USA, I simply couldn't list all possibilities myself. Use search engines, yellow pages or whatever the phone book's called in your country, and get the help you need. 

Remember, for all and any of these, you need to focus on the facts that you 

are worthy of receiving help and healing, 

that you aren't alone, and don't have to suffer in isolation, 

there are countless people, lay and professionals alike, out there, who can listen, advice, offer help and feedback.

All you need to do is to to accept these, to decide to seek for help, and starting to talk about what you need to discuss. 

I'll finish with a very important detail here : even if you don't currently suffer from a mental illness, or suffer from fewer criteria needed for a precise diagnosis, it's still important to reach out and get help for struggles with your mental health - when your capacity to deal and cope with things is less than what you need and want - because reaching out early can help your mental health enough to prevent an actual mental illness from developing.