How to help people without sending yourself mad

Or how I learned to stop trying to get too invested in other people's shit

My dad, who is 81 and lives alone, is feeling a bit under the weather this week. He’s got a non-Covid chest complaint. When I heard about this I immediately gave him a buzz. As soon as he answered the phone, I started firing frantic questions at him and offering up unsolicited advice. He sounded annoyed by this - which was understandable because it WAS annoying.

For starters it was the first time I had rung since Christmas (yes, shit son-ing) and the implication was that I could only be bothered making contact with him when there was a chance he might be actually dying. Plus, I was fussing like an old-woman who was about to wet her knickers. My dad is an intelligent adult who knows how to look after himself. Like most adults, he doesn’t take kindly to be being pitied or patronised. He didn’t need or want his youngest son on the blower speaking loudly about chest x-rays and GP referrals like he was a confused child. Thankfully, I realised I was being a dick quite early in the conversation, established that he wasn’t actually dying just yet and changed the subject to more enjoyable things like how much he hates Jose Mourinho.

Let’s get one thing straight: my hectoring tone was motivated only in part by genuine compassion.

It owed just as much to my own selfish fears. The fear that something bad might happen to my dad which in turn would impact on my own feelings. I was also motivated by the misplaced belief that I was able to intervene and fix the situation. But what the fuck do I know about lungs?

It’s a control issue that I think is common to lots of people. A desire for control - and the underlying knowledge that I had none - was maybe one of the reasons I used to get pissed all the time. It is dangerous to think that you can create a protective bubble for yourself or your loved ones. We are all subject to the same slings and arrows of life. It doesn’t matter if you reckon you’re more intelligent, more resourceful or even more rich than the next dickhead - sooner or later someone you love is gonna get a chest infection. Shit happens. Get used to it. And have a little faith in the ability of yourself and others to cope.

Life is arbitrary.

You really could be hit by a bus tomorrow. But you probably won’t be. And as I have written about here before, when Lady Fortune does decide to puke on your duvet (which she will, from time to time) you are more than capable of dealing with it. You’re a grown up. You will know what action to take. You’ve dealt with shit before and you will do it again. Things are rarely as bad as they seem. And all of this applies to the people you care about too.

None of us have that much control. There are just too many random factors out there. Getting on with life one day at a time and training yourself not to waste precious headspace on thinking about worst case scenarios is critical to living a happy, relaxed, relatively sane life. But it’s not just your own mad, booby-trapped existence you have to be at peace with. It’s other people’s too. There are so many people you care about who are running around living their own lives every day, facing all the same risks and pitfalls that we all face, jeopardising their safety, health and happiness as they do so. If you spend too much time contemplating all of that, you will only succeed in sending yourself bananas.

I have been there many times.

In the past I might have carried on hassling my dad with calls and texts, chasing him up about seeking doctor’s appointments or fretting about the tiny fluctuations of his breathing patterns. But not only would that annoy him it would stress me out for no reason. Having every last piece of information about a situation doesn’t make you any more capable of controlling it. My dad is a grown up. He doesn’t need me to guide him through every minor bump in the road. And, even if he did, it is unlikely that I would be able to fix all of his problems anyway. I would just load more and more pressure onto myself - and, like anyone else, I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.

I hope this doesn’t come across like a manifesto for not giving a shit about other people. I have written before about how important it is - especially in these troubled times - to be there for others. But there is a fine line between being the sort of person others know they can count on in a crisis and the sort of person who is just a nosey pain in the arse.

Over the years I have tried to implicate myself in the problems of numerous friends and relatives.

Sometimes I have helped, sometimes I haven’t. But in every case I have always ended up sharing the stress and concern (sometimes even the financial debt) of those people. Effectively I have turned one problem into two in the mistaken belief that if I worry on their behalf it will lessen their burden. It never does. I just end up as anxious as they are.

So how can you look out for people you care about while not sending yourself nuts in the process? What does ‘being there’ for your pals actually mean?

Personally, I try my best to operate inside stricter boundaries these days: Firstly, I try to make it clear to my mates that I am there if - and only if - they want to talk. Sometimes I do that by literally saying to them ‘I am here if you want to get stuff off your chest.’ Secondly, I try to show them my own vulnerability. I talk openly about my own anxieties, insecurities and mental health problems. This, I hope, demonstrates that these issues are familiar to me, I have experience of coping and I will not judge them. I hope showing them what a fuck up I am disarms them a bit.

Lastly (and this is one I still struggle with) I will try not to fix things. Instead, I will just listen and try to show understanding. I am not the mental-health SAS. I cannot parachute into other people’s lives and take their problems away. And even if I could it wouldn’t do them a whole lot of good in the long term. Ultimately, your mates and relatives are grown ups who are capable of making their own decisions. You cannot and should not try to take over like you’re fucking Supernanny. I have, in the past, lost months and months of my life worrying about the shit that is happening to other people. It has rarely done them much good - and has often done me a great deal of harm.

So now, I prefer to keep my message to others fairly simple:

“I am your mate. I am fucking mental. There is nothing you can tell me about what is going on in your head that I will judge you for. I can’t fix things for you. But just talking to me about stuff might help. And if you need a lift to the hozzy, I’m your man.”

I mean I have to phrase it differently depending on who I’m talking to. If I’d said those exact words to my dad he would have put the phone down on me. In his case, it was easier to just change the subject to football instead. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Jose Mourinho is as bad as my dad reckons. Mind you, he supports Spurs and I support West Ham. Which goes some way to explaining why I perhaps don’t call him as much as I should.

The Reset Podcast - In Conversation With Adrian Chiles

If you haven’t already, try and listen to this week’s podcast episode - an enjoyable and fascinating with Adrain Chiles. Adrian is a great writer, broadcaster and man of the people. We talked about mental health, his mission to moderate his boozing and his recent ADHD diagnosis,

Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times

https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123

@calm 0800 58 58 58

@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138

@ChairtySane 0300 304 7000

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/

https://andysmanclub.co.uk/