Letting Go
HILLARY
Recently, I have been forced to ask myself how best to support the people I love. Generally, I look to help my friends and family in any way that I can. If someone needs a place to stay, I help them find it or they stay with me. If someone needs help planning a wedding, I run whatever errands I can to help. If someone needs help moving, I help them move and give them whatever I can to help set up their home. If someone needs to be bailed out, I go bail them out. What I have found is that no matter how many times I go running to help people, if they don't want to help themselves then my actions are futile. Telling someone who needs help that you aren't going to help anymore is incredibly difficult, but that's exactly the position in which I find myself. I feel such turmoil about this, and I worry for the wellbeing of my friend, but I am not qualified to help people who are unwilling to help themselves.
JACK
It seems to me that you're having an experience that would parallel a very bad dream. You're watching your friend as she moves steadily towards a cliff that she will surely fall off if she continues in the same direction. You try to call out, you're screaming "Stop! You're going to go over the cliff," but the nightmare is that there is no sound. You can't hear yourself scream and, even more importantly, your friend does not hear your scream of anguish. How do you get your voice? How are you able to be heard? How can you alter the course that she is on? I feel that you are experiencing a helpless involvement, but you can't get the sound. We all go through similar experiences. I have seen friends literally destroy themselves, and my frustration runs the gamut from not wanting to inject my presence to how do I keep my friend from going over the cliff? The problem would be solved if you could persuade your friend to seek competent professional help, but I really feel the helplessness that you are experiencing is the realization that you have a lack of power to alter an inevitable conclusion. One road is to continue to try to find your voice. The other is to accept the fact that you do not have the power to change that particular situation. Although this relieves you of the responsibility, it can leave you with a hell of a hangover and you then become the patient.
Over the years, I have struggled with the same conundrum. At 21, I was one of an army that dropped incendiary bombs on crowded cities. On the one hand, I was awarded a medal for following orders in what seemed to be a noble cause. On the other hand, I will never erase the memory. Of course, the thought entered my mind "if I refuse to drop the bombs I could be shot as a traitor." The result is that I have the medal and the memory. When you speak of your friend, can you dismiss the consequences of no action? Or are you a realist that you do not have the power to change it?
HILLARY
It seems to me that not running to help is the only change that I can make that has any hope of success. I have tried multiple courses of action, which have either temporary or no effectiveness and I am left frustrated, saddened and worried that I've only made things worse. At some point, I realized that I don't have the power to change my friend's path. Only she can do that. I'm so scared for her, and I want her to be well, but I rest at night knowing that I have been the best friend that I possibly can be.
JACK
Do you think that this friend would benefit by getting the right kind of professional help?
HILLARY
Absolutely.
JACK
Have you ever suggested that?
HILLARY
Virtually every time we've spoken over the past year I have suggested that she get professional counseling. Recently I suggested that she get in-patient professional help to deal with the issues that seem to be overwhelming her. I'm not the only one suggesting that she needs serious help, but she continues to ignore the people in her life who love her most.
JACK
I really believe that you cannot help people who will not help themselves. Trying to help a friend who is an addict is enormously frustrating. After going as far as you can, even helping to pay for it, you have to accept the fact that you are powerless. Whatever offer you make to your friend you can keep it open and try to avoid judgment. The kindest thing you can do is to help find a solution, but having that rejected the next step is to be kind to yourself. Keep the offer open, but don't blame yourself if it's never accepted. You cannot stop her progress to the edge of the cliff.
HILLARY
We talk about communication, and how talking to people can resolve almost anything, but it seems that good communication is also knowing at what point you say good-bye.
Communication is inspiration! Share your thoughts below.
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Hillary, i know what you re going through it happened to me with my best friend from Paris Law school. she had her first kid while in law school and then had twins the following year and then another one by accident, anyway her couple was going though the drain, sometimes she slept in the livingroom,she was beat up, two of her kids were aneurexic (spelling?) anyway she had problems with her inlaws, with her kids, with her husband who told her for the fourth kid if you have an abortion then i leave you with the kids…. and i would come as soon as i was in France to spend three or four hours listening to her problems and it was only when moom would come to pick me up (since it was far away i could not drive to her, but she could, but still i was the one to go to her!!!) that she would say " ho but already, i know even know how you are doing!"
Sophie Morel 04/1/09 @ 1:02 ami kept telling her, you need help, go see the shrink, leave your husband, leave this house, anyway years after years it was always the same, i kept coming back home depressed because i saw her situation getting worst and mine although with diseases and pain, much better and happier!
so one day I had to say stop!!!
i was going through therapy and my shrink told me to be more selfish…
also she used to tell me that only yourself can help yourself if you want to change. So if your friend does not want to be help, who are you to want to change her? it is her life and unfortunately if she is blind and does not want to hear your help then, Hillary it is ok. You have nothing to be ashamed of, you are the best friend your friend has had, but you know what, there is nothing more you can do for her, just to tell her that you would always be there for her, if and when she would need you.