Help Reviews

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 20, 2014

We often warn readers about the dangers of being too helpful, but for every person who gives without thinking, there are plenty of others who want to help someone they love but are too paralyzed to act. Whether someone you love rejects your help or asks for it, your ability to be helpful doesn’t depend entirely on their motivation or yours, but also on the nature of their problem and what kind of help, if any, is likely to be effective. So don’t make it your business to push or provide help until you know more about their problem. Then you’ll have a better idea of how to focus your efforts and limit your responsibility to providing what will actually work. That way you can find the right balance of helping, which involves doing the most good with the least harm to everyone involved.
–Dr. Lastname

My sister got arrested last weekend for dealing drugs, and even though I wasn’t surprised, it brought back all my angry, helpless memories of the many times when we were growing up that she would get into trouble and then get into treatment, tell everybody she was feeling better and going straight, and then fuck up again. This time she’ll probably go away for 10 years and the state will take custody of her kids. My parents are devastated and wonder where they went wrong, and I’m also thinking hard about whether I was a good brother. A few months ago, after she stole from our parents, I told her I’d never trust her again and I wonder whether that caused her to give up hope. I can’t stop thinking about her and I can’t sleep or focus. My goal is to figure out how to get over these feelings so I don’t ruin my life as well.

When people we love do bad things, we usually give them two options: punishment or help, with help sometimes coming in the form of punishment, and vice versa. Even when intentions are good, good is not what necessarily results.

Unfortunately, some lack the ability to respond to either; neither additional help nor punishment will give them the self-control, moral compass, or whatever it takes to stop themselves from doing bad things. What they do deserve, and won’t get, is better genetic luck, and what their families deserve is protection from their bad behavior.

It’s good that your family helped your sister get treatment not once, but many times. The fact that she didn’t improve doesn’t mean she’s perversely determined to be a bad person or that your family didn’t get her the right treatment, just that she doesn’t have the capacity to use existing treatments, and they don’t have the ability to help her. It’s a grim diagnosis and prognosis, which can only be made on the basis of her actual response to treatment, and it’s no one’s fault, not even hers.

So don’t ever assume that you and your family are responsible for helping someone who can’t be helped or who is dangerous to help, because giving yourself such responsibility would be cruel, destructive, and disrespectful. You’re responsible for helping your sister if you think it would do some good and wouldn’t put you in peril. You’ve done a good job trying, and she’s done a good job showing you how far your help can go.

Just because you can’t help her doesn’t mean you can’t love her. As a matter of fact, knowing that you aren’t responsible can relieve you of anger and make it easier to protect yourself while giving her love and good, direct advice. When you write her, let her know you care and want to hear about how she’s doing, and remind her there are opportunities to get stronger in prison and learn from counselors and other inmates.

By the time she gets out, her ties to bad friends will be weaker and she’ll have a chance to start over. You won’t invite her to live with you because you can’t, and it wouldn’t be a good idea, but you’ll never stop rooting for her.

Initially, it may torment you to accept the fact that she can’t be helped. Once you stop holding yourself responsible for doing the impossible, however, you will be much less tormented and more effective at giving her encouragement and good advice. Even if she’s beyond help, she’s not beyond your support.

STATEMENT:
“I feel a horrible sense of helplessness and anger when I think of my sister, but I know she’s never had the strength to control her behavior and that my family and I have given her all the love and treatment opportunities a person can have. I will respect what we’ve done for her and never blame her or myself for her problems.”

My son told me the other day that he wanted to see a shrink, and I don’t know how to help him. He’s very opinionated with me, but his teachers tell me that he gets pushed around a bit, knocks himself out for his friends, and basically never seems able to assert himself. He’s also terrible at losing things and forgetting about deadlines, though his grades aren’t bad. He doesn’t seem unhappy all the time to me or his teachers, but he says he’s unhappy and wants help. I don’t know whether it’s an emergency or even just how to choose a therapist for him from the insurance list. I’m glad he came to me for help, but I have no idea where to start.

Parents usually know more about their kids’ problems than they think, and can find out a great deal more with a few simple questions, so don’t let your worry or confusion push you to the telephone before conducting your own preliminary investigation. If you do, you’ll usually come up with good answers to the questions you’ve raised by going straight to the source.

For instance, you suspect your son isn’t seriously depressed because he often seems happy. Find out more by asking him if he’s always unhappy, or whether his unhappiness prevents him from working or talking to friends or makes him think about dying. You can also find out if he has periods when he feels scared for no reason, can’t catch his breath, or feels his heart racing.

You know he has trouble asserting himself, but you also know he’s plenty assertive at home, so ask him whether he feels comfortable with his friends or has any particular worries about them. Don’t ask him why he’s unassertive; he won’t have an answer for a question that implies there’s something wrong with him. Instead, tell him it’s often hard to feel comfortable in life, no matter what your age, and that uncomfortable feelings often cause people to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise, so you wonder whether he ever finds himself doing things with or for his friends that he later regrets.

Finally, his losing things suggests he may have problems with attention or organization, although the fact that he gets his work done suggests that he’s developed some good methods for compensating for his weaknesses. Ask him whether he gets restless in class or in social conversations and observe how well he pays attention when you do homework together.

By this point, you will probably know whether he needs to talk about something that he can’t tell you about, and/or needs help in managing depression, depressive thoughts, anxiety attacks, peer-compliant behavior, and attention problems.

Ask your pediatrician to recommend some therapist, and then call them and let them know what you think he needs. Then, when you meet, decide whether they seem to have an approach that you think will work and give it a try. It’s never easy to help someone you love, even when they ask for it, but it’s not as hard as you think to try.

STATEMENT:
“My son’s unhappiness makes me feel helpless, as does the idea that he feel he needs help from someone other than his parents, but I know how to gather important information about his problems, without intruding on his feelings, that will help me identify the kind of treatment and clinician that he needs.”