Posted by Racer on March 7, 2004, at 12:57:51
In reply to Re: frustrated trying to help strangers (strategies?), posted by fallsfall on March 7, 2004, at 10:56:10
What fallsfall said is so right on, so helpful. I too went to a support group for a couple of years, and it was so helpful. But I never once saw hard hitting advice help anyone. There is a fine line with advice, because if you come on too strong, people will get defensive. What they say back can range from, "Oh, I don't want to worry about meds, that's the doctor's job" to "that's too much for me to do" to "you can't believe everything you read online," but the bottom line is that people in the midst of a depressive episode are easily manouvered onto the defensive. Just the nature of the beast.
Another thing is even more basic: some people need to feel they have taken charge of their recovery, are actively participating in the decisions made about drugs or other therapy, and some people really don't seem to need that at all. They take the drugs prescribed, and the less they know about it all, the better it works for them. That difference in operational patterns really does need to be respected.
On the other hand, it's great that you want to help people. I agree with Dinah and fallsfall that a softer, less confrontational approach is probably more effective, but here's another suggestion: have you thought about volunteering some time to the support group's administration? Maybe take on a project that interests you like making summaries of medications from sources on the internet? Then the information would be available more easily to those who want to be more proactive on their own behalf. Or you could just get involved in the basic day to day things that go into running a group like that. Then maybe you wouldn't feel so frustrated that you were trying to help and getting no where with it. You'd be able to see the help you did provide, it would be a lot more apparent to you and the pride you could take in that might help soothe that frustration.
Good luck!
poster:Racer
thread:321503
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040305/msgs/321620.html