Dealing with other people's mental health issues

[spiritual dreams]

Yesterday, one of my friends was going through some shit. She opened up to me about eating disorders, body dysmorphia, grief, self hatred, and most importantly, suicidal thoughts.

 

I've had a heightened sensitivity to energy recently so I felt intense negative emotions rise up inside me. When she mentioned grief and suicide, I felt intense anxiety and aversion coming up, like it was triggering my own traumas. I tried handling it logically and giving her sound advice on self love, therapy, meditation, 'get help' etc. but it felt very forced and artificial. I was almost trying to block out her negative emotions.

 

I feel bad about this because I feel should have been more compassionate and loving but I was just scared and slightly defensive. I'm also very worried about her at the moment because her mental health issues are pretty serious. At the same time, thinking about her problems gives me anxiety and seems to be triggering my own traumas. This is a pretty rude awakening because I hope to one day use my knowledge to help heal others mental health issues but I guess I need some work to do.

 

I also feel I may have manifested this because my thoughts were pretty negative that day as well.

 

How do I deal with this situation?

[Devin]

Life guards are taught to push drowning victims away with their leg, they stick their leg out to push the drowner away if the drowner is acting too eradictly and climbing all over the lifeguard, lifeguards have drowned from this.

 

You suggested therapy, only thing else I would suggest is a suicide hotline or some grief or counseling hotline. If you drown with her you can't save anyone, including her.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Devin

[Phil]

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

How do I deal with this situation?

Seeing clearly, or, ‘right view’, as in nothing’s happening, and so there’s nothing to deal with. There’s the thought that there is, and there’s that thought that I’m separate, and then there’s the thought ‘how do I deal with this situation’.

 

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

Yesterday, one of my friends was going through some shit. She opened up to me about eating disorders, body dysmorphia, grief, self hatred, and most importantly, suicidal thoughts.

The body has no notion of death and therein no inclination to die. What stands to die as in end is the discord, suffering, ego, separate self implied by discordant thoughts believed, which the body bears the burden of. 

 

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

I've had a heightened sensitivity to energy recently so I felt intense negative emotions rise up inside me. When she mentioned grief and suicide, I felt intense anxiety and aversion coming up, like it was triggering my own traumas. I tried handling it logically and giving her sound advice on self love, therapy, meditation, 'get help' etc. but it felt very forced and artificial. I was almost trying to block out her negative emotions.

That’s all transpiring in thought. Not in perception or sensation. 

 

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

I feel bad about this because I feel should have been more compassionate and loving but I was just scared and slightly defensive. I'm also very worried about her at the moment because her mental health issues are pretty serious. At the same time, thinking about her problems gives me anxiety and seems to be triggering my own traumas. This is a pretty rude awakening because I hope to one day use my knowledge to help heal others mental health issues but I guess I need some work to do.

The so called finite mind seems to assert claims about how awareness feels in spite of the fact an appearance doesn’t constitute a knower. 

 

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

I also feel I may have manifested this because my thoughts were pretty negative that day as well.

Oneself is the creator and there is no second. 

 

3 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

How do I deal with this situation?

Non-aversion. Other people is a health issue, a misidentification. 

[Joseph Maynor]

My whole life mentally ill people have been attracted to me and I've accepted them and gotten to know them.  Not exactly the safest relation to be in, but as long as you have healthy distance, boundaries, and patience win-win relationships are possible.  Be careful about letting your guard down too much though because their mental illness will also become your problem and in your life.  One thing I will say is be careful with trauma bonding.  This is where you tend to become attached to narcissists for example because you have deep trauma from narcissists and you're subconsciously attracted to narcissists for some reason.  I don't know if this is true, but it's almost like inside you're trying to fix that trauma inside you by relating with the trauma in a different person.  So if you've been abused in a certain way by someone with mental illness, look for being attracted to those same kinds of people and note this as a possible trauma bond.  I would probably advise to stay away from trauma bonding because I'm not sure it actually helps get rid of the underlying trauma.  It's ok to say no to toxic behavior, it's not personal -- it's reasonable.  If somebody is just stirring up bees and you see that you don't need to wait around to get stung too.  If you're friends with someone with a severe gambling addiction, don't be surprised if they give you a line of desperation to pay their bills,  and you give them money but they gamble that money away and never pay you back.  You gotta have boundaries dealing with mentally ill people of every kind.  And that might mean you say the golden word -- No!  Sorry, but no.  I see where this is going and I don't want to participate.  It's a net loss for me and also a loss for you because our relationship will be strained.  Saying no is better than getting burned so that the entire relationship dies.  But you have to think for you and for them.  They're not staying in their own lane due to their metal illness.  It's difficult and sensitive to talk about this topic but I had something to say here so I went ahead and said it.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Joseph Maynor

[Jonas Long]

Trauma bonding is when people go through the same trauma together, and feel like nobody else will be able to relate to them like that person does because of sharing something like that, so sometimes stay together longer than they should because of it. 

[Mandy]

7 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

I also feel I may have manifested this because my thoughts were pretty negative that day as well.

You manifested not her and the conversation but your response to the conversation, the way you felt about the conversation was a continuation of the momentum you had going on. Put your own oxygen mask on first, like @Devinsaid, you can't assist anyone else unless you're paying attention to how you feel first. 

[spiritual dreams]

4 hours ago, Devin said:

You suggested therapy, only thing else I would suggest is a suicide hotline or some grief or counseling hotline. If you drown with her you can't save anyone, including her.

Yup fair enough.

[Phil]

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

Yesterday, one of my friends was going through some shit. She opened up to me about eating disorders, body dysmorphia, grief, self hatred, and most importantly, suicidal thoughts.

 

I've had a heightened sensitivity to energy recently so I felt intense negative emotions rise up inside me.

Energy is nondual. Energy & sensitivity are not two. There is no experience of heightened sensitivity to energy. 

Therein, the is no actual experience of negative emotion(s).

Judging the energy-sensitivity is not noticing, and believing, self-judgement. 

 

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

When she mentioned grief and suicide, I felt intense anxiety and aversion coming up, like it was triggering my own traumas. I tried handling it logically and giving her sound advice on self love, therapy, meditation, 'get help' etc. but it felt very forced and artificial. I was almost trying to block out her negative emotions.

The ‘blocking’ is the egocentric claim there are ‘negative emotions’. 

Alternatively, there is respecting, appreciating, allowing & welcoming the guidance. 

Self-respect, vs self-judgement; suffering, vs liberation - feeling as yourself. 

🤍

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

I feel bad about this because I feel should have been more compassionate and loving but I was just scared and slightly defensive. I'm also very worried about her at the moment because her mental health issues are pretty serious. At the same time, thinking about her problems gives me anxiety and seems to be triggering my own traumas.

Why can’t it be simple, direct experienced based - you don’t like how some thoughts feel. “I feel bad”; that’s not true at all. The thought is discordant. The thought isn’t true. “I feel should have…” - really? “Should have” is feeling…? 🧐 Seems like a thought, felt by feeling. Likewise, “her problems”. 

 

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

This is a pretty rude awakening because I hope to one day use my knowledge to help heal others mental health issues but I guess I need some work to do.

When all your ignorance is gone, will you know it?

 

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

I also feel I may have manifested this because my thoughts were pretty negative that day as well.

In believing in positive and negative, overlooking the judgement of thoughts - the nature of the source if you will, of the truth, of nonduality, is overlooked. 

If there are not “two sources”, is there still “positive & negative” thoughts, emotions, etc? 

 

20 hours ago, spiritual dreams said:

 

How do I deal with this situation?

Is there still “a problem” which “needs to be dealt with”?