How to Support a Friend Who’s Going Through a Rough Patch
Six simple things you can do to help your loved ones when they need it
Let’s get really diplomatic about something quick: Life is weird. Some days are marvelous. Some days feel impossible, and those days can easily blur into weeks, sometimes months. When that happens, we need our community to be there for us to hold our hand and bring us back to the days we can marvel at. And when a dip like this happens to our friends, we need to be the ones reaching out our own hands.
Over the years, my friends and I have covered some rough terrain. Without one another’s generosity and support, those rough patches would have been exceedingly more difficult to trudge through. While my heart aches when my friends’ hearts ache, I find a lot of joy coming up with ways to make them feel loved; to show them that, while I am not going through the same thing they are, I will walk through it with them, hand-in-hand.
It can feel harrowing when someone you love is hurting. We think there’s nothing we can do; we feel helpless to change the situation. It’s true, we may not be able to change what they’re going through, but there are many things we can do to impact the well-being of our friends when they need it the most.
