How do you find "social support"?

Thanks for your response!

Here is a definition from Collins online dictionary:

A crisis is a situation in which something or someone is affected by one or more very serious problems.

If someone was told that their friend/relative was in crisis and needed to talk, three of the items in our list might come to mind:

"I won't be able to help"
"This is going to take a long time"
"That person is going to be really upset"

Plus they might also be thinking, depending on the situation:

"Not again."
"I really don't want to deal with this."

I think what this all means is that one needs to be judicious about who one approaches when in crisis. People can be genuine friends and nevertheless not feel willing or able to help out when there are serious problems.

Can you say more about positive ways to have interactions with your family, and also more about how that relates to finding you old/real self again?

Thank you too again!

Yeah, the psychological definition is, a situation where someone's coping resources are temporarily overwhelmed.

Hm well.

I notice you did not list thoughts of concern for the person in crisis.

Is there any particular reason why you didn't?

What emotions do you think motivate the thoughts in this list?



The IRL friends I had, they came to me with crises just fine. They were suicidal, or being deceived by a guy, or overwhelmed with financial issues and/or with total, complete hopelessness, and so on. There was a lot of that over the years tbh. I am talking about two friends or "friends", the first two issues were one friend (the more normal friend) and the rest were the other friend (the toxic one). The toxic one is who had a lot of it over the years, the other friend didn't have so much of it or so regularly. (Not the same friend as the one in high school)

Do you want to know what I was thinking each time?

Well firstoff, I never ever thought "not again" or "I really don't want to deal with this".... I just never thought any of that.

What I did think when these friends or "friends" came to me with crises was,

- "I would like to know more on their issue!!, see if I can help a little or be there for them at least".

As far as the rest of your list, I didn't think "this is going to take a long time", because I can set limits on time, but of course I did make the mistake of not really checking the time a long time ago. If it was now, I would pay attention to how long I'm spending on it though. I also didn't think "I won't be able to help" because I'm like, just being there and being attentive already helps, that's how I think about it.

- "That person is going to be really upset". Yes, I would think that too. No problem with that in my eyes.

Again, the psychological definition of crisis includes overwhelmed coping resources. Your friend may not temporarily be able to be "judicious". My friends or "friends" were also *not* able to be judicious in their crises. I never judged them for that.

What would make someone - who's a genuine friend - not willing? Do you have examples of this? I'm really interested in this one.

What would make someone think things like "I really don't want to deal with this"? (Variation on the question of, what emotions motivate the thoughts in the above list)

I'll get to this a bit later, it's late here now and have to pull the thoughts together.

We have been focusing on what make make a friend or family member more or less willing to agree to be helpful. I think that their closeness, friendliness, love would bear on the point "Asking someone who has given you good reason to think that they don't mind being asked, or even like being asked." Maybe the point you are making should be made more explicitly?

Possible emotions regarding wanting to help: love, affection, admiration, worry, fear/shame of letting someone down

Possible emotions regarding not wanting to help: fear of failure, fear of interference with other plans, resentment at being asked (or at too much being asked), shame at seeing relative/friend in crisis, dislike of one's own emotional state/anxiety, discomfort with uncertainty as to eventual success of effort and how much time will be involved.

Probably there can be more on both sides.

Not everyone is as good and reliable and amazing of a friend as you are!

Perhaps this was a lesson painfully learned?

Didn't your "friends" consistently know to come to you, that you would be there for them?

Maybe someone is drunk and the friend had an alcoholic parent and is triggered and simply cannot deal. Maybe the friend has a massively important family or career event in the next few hours. Maybe what is being asked is just too much (e.g. leave your child alone to come and stay overnight with me), maybe they don't approve of what is being asked (e.g. drive me to get vaccinated).

I think that there could be lots of reasons. Your definition of "genuine friend" might include doing all of the above but, again, not everyone is as good and reliable and amazing a friend as you.

Yeah, I think the emotions above cover this, or try to.

It sounds like, in general, you have a very broad, inclusive understanding of what you should be and do as a friend. Perhaps regrettably, not everyone shares that perspective. And in considering who is likely to be helpful in a crisis, my thought is that one needs to take into consideration how the other people view friendship, what they feel willing and able to do in response to being asked to help.

How did you eventually come to stop viewing those "friends" as friends?