MIND MOVESInstead of picking someone up when they've fallen, why not lie down beside them?,writes Tony Bates
SHE WAS only 21 years old, but her insights suggested a much older and wiser head - the kind of person who seemed to have both feet firmly grounded in reality and who took no comfort in sentiment or fantasy.
Even when the latter might have taken the edge off painful truths that were hard to swallow. She didn't do Disneyland; she chose to live and struggle in the real world. And her gift to all of us was that she refused to be compromised.
The conversation moved to young people and suicide: the waste of life that each statistic reflected and the failure on the part of society to "save" these young people. Her contribution to the discussion came after a lot of listening: "If I'm in crisis," she said, "I don't want to be rescued, I don't want to be saved."
At this stage, we all knew her well enough to stay quiet and hear her out.
She added: "I don't need to be rescued and airlifted out of whatever it is that I'm experiencing. What I need is for someone to walk with me through it, and to support me to come out the other side stronger as a result."
Her comments have stayed with me long since we spoke. Perhaps because there was something in what she was saying that seems very different from the way we - as parents, professionals and media - talk about young people and their mental health.
While she in no way denied the pain that young people experience, she never lost sight of their inherent capacity to learn and grow through these times.
When we see a young person we care about in great distress, it is perfectly natural to want to protect them. However, there is a fine line between trying to protect them and trying to "fix" them and take them out of their pain.
We need to be aware of the danger of talking about them, and, more importantly, to them, as though they are "victims" who need saving, rather than people who, despite hurting like hell, are often more resilient and resourceful than many of us.
People need different kinds of support and intervention, depending on the degree of distress and disorganisation they are currently experiencing. Of course, there are times when urgent attention is required.
If you're thrashing around in deep water unable to swim, what you need is a life buoy. You need a safe space and the right kind of expertise to contain or "hold" you through periods when you are falling apart.
But when the panic is over and you know you're not going to drown, you need the skills to find the way back to shore. Later, when you're back on solid ground, you need to take some time to reflect on why it is you keep ending up in life-threatening and chaotic circumstances.
Every human being is a work in progress. It takes a long time to pull together the different elements of our inner lives into some coherent sense of identity.
We will inevitably hit times when we need support to make sense of the chaos in and out of which our lives emerge. But it is important that whatever support we access does not disempower us or make us feel dependant.
Ultimately, the best resource we have for getting out of trouble is belief in ourselves. How we think about ourselves in relation to a crisis and how we view our capacity to get through it are just as critical as whatever may be happening in our lives.
My friend, quoted above, wrote something once that captures this in a more elegant way than I am capable.
I leave her words with you in the hope that they may give you a fresh take on mental health:
"At an individual level, the road to mental health could be seen as a journey of discovery and adventure. It is a courageous confrontation of fear, pain and sadness. A journey that at times is reliant on the support of others, but is ultimately a solitary quest for one's true self.
"More and more young people are embarking on this quest, though they may not know it as such, and they may not have necessarily chosen to do so. Often, they are encouraged to perceive themselves as victims instead of heroes; but who is more likely to win the battle?"
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong - The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (www.headstrong.ie)