“You can’t wallow in self-pity forever. It’s time to move on”
This was the advice I was given by a ‘friend’ after I went through a life-altering trauma that left me in a state of complete emotional brokenness. The real message of this simple statement is not hard to decipher if you read between the lines. My ‘friend’ may have meant it as some kind of pep talk, but all I heard was judgement: “Your feelings are unreasonable; They amount to self-pity; You have spent long enough grieving and it’s time to get better; I am getting a bit tired of supporting you; Why can’t you just go back to the way you were before.” What we say, and what we communicate are two different things.
Six types of friends you don’t need when you’re going through a hard time
If you struggle to find the right words to say to a person who is depressed or hurting, you’re not alone. As a general rule, it’s not easy to respond to a someone who has lost a loved one, been fired from their job, received bad news, or is going through a mental health challenge.
When it comes to emotional pain and suffering, there are good and bad ways to respond and many people feel ill-equipped to know the difference. I’m not a counselor or a psychologist but I have the authority of one who has suffered and I can tell you what did and did not work for me. The kinds of unhelpful responses I received fall broadly into six different categories. If you are supporting someone who is going through a hard time — and many of us are — then don’t be like one of these six types of friends.
1. The Patronizer
The patronizing friend subtly berates you for your sad feelings by making you feel like you have no right to feel the way you do. They usually do this by unfairly comparing your pain to others who they perceive are in much worse situations. They tend to rate your pain as, “not that bad,” compared to everyone else’s, and are impatient with people who don’t move on quickly.
Examples:
- “There’s no use crying over spilled milk”
- “Well, you can’t change it now”
- “What’s done is done”
- “It’s not that bad!”
- “It could be worse!”
- “Put it into perspective — there are kids starving in Africa”
- “Look on the bright side”
- “You need to move on”
- “That’s life”
2. The Sermonizer
The sermonizing friend falls back on their religion to try to explain away your pain. They have a ready-to-go list of Bible verses, religious platitudes and cliches on hand to use during times of crisis — mainly when it is experienced by someone other than themselves. The sermonizing friend is well-meaning but doesn’t realize that instead of acknowledging your pain, they are really just trying to explain why you shouldn’t feel as miserable as you do. If only you had more faith!
Examples:
- “I’ll pray for you!”
- “God has a plan”
- “Everything happens for a reason.”
- “God won’t put you through anything you can’t handle”
- “Don’t you know that all things work together for our good?”
- “Count your blessings”
3. The Tranquilizer
The tranquilizing friend is the one who believes that the best way to deal with your pain is to medicate it with fun, busyness, alcohol — anything that deadens or distracts you from how depressed you are. This can be helpful but only in as much as it doesn’t become constant. The main problem with this approach is that it only masks the feelings of pain, preventing you from actually confronting and processing them.
Examples:
- “You just need to do something to take your mind off it”
- “I know! Let’s go out and do something fun!”
- “Just keep yourself busy”
- “Here’s a bottle of wine, some pain-killers and a 4 liter tub of your favorite ice cream”
4. The Moralizer
The moralizing friend reduces all of your problems down to black and white scenarios and, from the loft heights of their self-appointed position on the moral high ground, they love to explain where you went wrong and how they would have done it better. They have an uncanny knack of making you feel like your pain and suffering is your own fault.
Examples:
- “Here’s where you went wrong…”
- “You brought this upon yourself, really”
- “If only you had done this/hadn’t done this…”
- “You reap what you sow”
- “If only you were more positive”
5. The Formularizer
The formularizer thinks they have all the answers and will break it down to a step-by-step formula for you. Sometimes their advice is helpful, but often in the midst of your pain, you simply want someone to listen to you instead of telling you what to do.
Examples:
- “Here’s what you need to do…”
- “If I were you, I would…”
- “Let me give you some free advice”
- “This is not going to get better until you…”
6. The Individualizer
The individualizer somehow finds a way to make your story and you emotional hurt all about them. They will often try to trump your pain by regaling you with their own stories of woe.
Examples:
- “Oh yes, I’ve been through this many times myself”
- “Here’s what worked for me…”
- “That’s nothing compared to what I went through.”
- “I know exactly how your feel”
So, what actually helps?
With friends like these, who needs enemies? The patronizer, the sermonizer, the tranquilizer, the moralizer, the formularizer and the individualizer might mean well. They might even offer some temporary respite for your emotional pain, but if you surround yourself with these kind of voices, it’s bound to make you feel worse. On the other hand, some people just have the knack of being able to offer real help to those who are emotionally down and out. Here are some of the things they do:
The Apologizer
The apologizer recognizes that they don’t really have all the answers — or even any answers — but acknowledges and honors the pain you are feeling, without offering trite cliches or hollow advice.
Examples:
- “I’m so sorry”
- “I have no words”
- “I can’t imagine what you’re going through”
- “That’s so rough”
- “I don’t know what to say, but my heart is breaking for you”
The Prioritizer
The prioritizer is the friend who inconveniences themselves in order to make themselves available to you — to be physically present in your pain. Nothing is too much trouble.
Examples:
- “How can I love you best right now?”
- “How can I support you?”
- “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
- “Would you like me to come and see you?”
- “If you need me, I’ll be there”
- “You are not alone in this”
- “I’m not sure what to do, but I’m sure we can figure it out together.”
The Sympathizer
The sympathizer is the friend who offers you the greatest gift you can give to a person who is hurting — a listening ear. Henri Nouwen describes listening as, “A very active and extremely alert form of caring.”
Examples:
- “If you want to talk about it we can, but if you would rather not, that’s fine too.”
- “I really don’t know what to say, but I’m hear if you need to talk”
The Energizer
The energizer is the friend who make it their goal to support and encourage their hurting friend with kinds words. Words of affirmation are like oxygen for a hurting person.
Examples:
- “You mean a lot to me”
- “I’m thinking of you”
- “I love you no matter what”
- “You are brave”
- “You are strong”
- “You can get through this, and I’ll be there to help you”
- “You are an inspiration to me”
The Empathizer
The empathizer has the ability to put themselves in the shoes of the person who is hurting. They imagine how they would like to be treated and spoken to if they were in their hurting friend’s situation, and then they apply it. The validate the person’s feelings as natural and reasonable.
Examples:
- “It makes sense that you are feeling this way”
- “It’s totally understandable”
- “I don’t know how I’d cope if I were in your situation, but I admire your strength.”
- “I can see this is a really hard time for you”
- “I’m with you in this”
- “You can count on my support”
The Last Word
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s never easy supporting people through their time of emotional pain. But, it is both a skill and an art and, therefore, it is something that everyone can get better at doing. It is my hope that this article has given you some new tools that you can use to help your hurting friends, but also shown you which tools to lay down. Avoid being one of the six kinds of friends that hurting people don’t need and become the kind of friend you hope people will be for you when you go through your own difficult times.
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This post was previously published on Backyard Church and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Envato Elements