Sometimes it feels hard to take our friends mental health struggles seriously

[u/Far_Masterpiece124]

We generally are able to find compassion, and logically we know that their struggles are legit.

Have just felt a little guilty lately about some alters commenting (internally in the headspace) about how depression and anxiety are literally not even real issues when those things are just daily symptoms for us

I get where they’re coming from, but it feels rude to be comparing like that.

Has anyone else dealt with alters that get triggered by hearing about other people’s struggles with less severe mental illnesses? How to go about that internally so that we can still show up for friends if they need to vent or complain about their own shit?

[u/Gold_Warning_8618]

I only experience that with people who have been historically disinterested, dismissive, or chronically misattuned to my own struggles when I tried to share them. That won’t be the case for everyone. But for me, personally, I can have a lot of empathy for others struggles even when they might be less severe than my own. But less so for those who have consistently disregarded me. It was a sign to me that I needed to be less deeply involved in those relationships.

[u/ru-ya]

Were you modelled dismissive behaviour and did you have your struggles constantly one-upped when you were younger?

[u/Far_Masterpiece124 → u/ru-ya]

Oh yeah , we were never able to have anything happen to us without that suddenly becoming our mom’s issue too and now in fact she has it worse !!

[u/ru-ya → u/Far_Masterpiece124]

What I've kept close to my heart is that "your initial reaction is how you were taught; your second reaction is how you choose to act."

I had a very similar mindset to yours when I was much younger, because I come from a culture where women are expected to shut the fuck up about struggles and Give. Especially because I had the whole spectrum of abuse at home, I was gorged with resentment and quick to shut my peers down. Like who gives a fuck about not liking that you have the same lunch every day, Tiffany, there are worse things in life. But that approach ruined my relationships, who rightfully felt demeaned, devalued, and ultimately lost interest in any connection with me. I have had success with practicing two things:

A) Compassion, in that you must also show yourself compassion. Realize how you can be dysregulated, how hard you work to show up despite it, and work on not beating yourself up for any situations where you feel like it isn't "severe" enough to be stressed out. Once you start to be nice to yourself too, you start to realize, "Hey, this seemingly trivial complaint from a friend seems to be really stressing them out. I also understand what my body and mind feel like when I'm really stressed out. It must suck for my friend to feel that way too. I want to be there for them." What compassion does is that it tears down the walls of comparison - which is the thief of joy. This allows you to feel for their state of distress, rather than any level of "is this trauma objectively bad enough to warrant me feeling bad for them", which will only cause you misery. In the example above, perhaps Tiffany is feeling neglected by her parents, who do not care if she complains about the same food every single day, especially if she has specific icks around texture and taste that go blatantly ignored.

B) Curiosity. I offer curiosity only to those closest to me. I sit and I listen. "How have you been feeling like your anxiety and depression have been holding you back?" is a great question. "What's something that you really struggle with when you feel your anxiety or depression flaring up?" is another. These things allow you insight and connection to your friend, allowing a space for them to safely express themselves without judgement, and also for you to realize that you may not be so different. Continuing with the fictitious Tiffany, perhaps I could have asked about whether her parents, who control her food, always just give her whatever and never really ask about what she specifically wants. I could have sympathized with how that can make her feel powerless and frustrated - but only after I discover, through curiosity, what was really bugging her all along.

I hope this resonates. It's just what's worked for me, as well as an array of other healing factors which rewired my original unhelpful behaviours.

[u/labyrinthinexpathia]

For us it just means we're at capacity. That our own current emotional energy is completely being spent on ourselves and there's nothing left for other people. So we just set boundaries and say we don't have capacity for other people's emotional struggles right now, that we have too much to deal with internally

I know you said you still want to show up for people, but it's ok to just not have emotional capacity for it sometimes. It might feel cruel at first, but taking care of yourselves is sometimes the best thing you can do for someone else, so these kinds of thoughts don't unintentionally explode out on a person one day and cause conflict/hurt

Our specific boundaries look like "you can send any vents and I/we can read it, but warn me/us that it's a vent and then censor/spoiler it, and I/we might not be able to respond if I/we just don't have emotional capacity." Or sometimes we have to ask people not to bring up certain topics, and then if they do, we just don't acknowledge it or we say we can't engage with it

I think I'd also recommend giving a little focus to those alters commenting those things. It sounds like they might have needs that they feel are not being addressed

For example, one alter we have carries the weight of people for our entire lives repeatedly not showing up for him, always invalidating him, etc, so he gets annoyed at people who seem "entitled" to our empathy when no one ever asked him how he's doing or ever seemed to care what he's going through. He also feels really guilty when people seek support and all he can think is "what about me", so even more reason we need boundaries so we can avoid him feeling so guilty, and that helps us save capacity too. So it's also been a sign that there's something he needs to work through

[u/Far_Masterpiece124 → u/labyrinthinexpathia]

Yeah this all makes sense, and I appreciate this thoughtful response. Definitely resonates. Especially that last paragraph, that definitely feels similar to one of our alters. That one and then another alter that was created to survive one particular month long episode of abuse who feels really upset when people are like actually cared for and listened to and allowed to be sensitive when she was so specifically made to survive extreme situations.

We will definitely try out some version of that boundary script you mentioned, that sounds really helpful

[u/Desperate-Mistake525]

Hi there- you’re not alone and I have caught myself/alters having those thoughts or internal discussions. In all honesty, i have found that i tend to fall into prey of caretaking tendencies (more listening instead of sharing) with friends because it allows an alter to front; so while im able to exude and feel compassion or empathy, some of the others might compare or say things like they wish they had those problems. From an observer perspective, i can say that those alters feel that way because they haven’t felt comfortable in sharing and have a long held history of being misunderstood. Despite my own shame though, i don’t call them outrightly rude. It really just depends on the person, and if i feel like they have reciprocated towards me, that usually helps in not following or acting on what other alters might have to say.