Jodie Vanderslot | Health Editor
Featured image | Rowan Campbell
I’m in a state of dizzying complexity, and I’m struggling to catch my breath. Thoughts and worries begin racing, charging around my head and storming through the gates of my self-consciousness. I’m silent because I’ve worked myself up into a panic, my heart thunders in my chest, and my throat begins to tremble. My gasps for air threaten to burst my lungs, and a seed of dread begins to swell inside me.
I’m stuck in a cyclone of negative thoughts and fears. I’m either pulling at the loose thread on my sleeve, or pressing my thumbnail into my index finger. If I’m holding keys, they’re pushed tightly into the palm of my hand.
I’m trying to think of a way to tell you what it is that has gotten me so tied up and twisted this time.
I don’t always know how to explain what it is I’m feeling, and I’m not sure it would make sense, even if I could find the words. I can’t retrace my steps far enough to tell you how I got here, and I can’t guide myself back in any efficient way. When it’s all over, I’m left there feeling exhausted, weary eyed, and with a heavy heart.
If I’m being honest, I don’t know what I want to hear, but I’d still like you to be there.
It’s extremely hard to relate to a situation we have not faced or are not experiencing ourselves at that very moment. It’s no one’s fault, but it’s important to be mindful of someone else’s experience in that situation. Empathy is about taking or trying to understand the perspective of someone else, and recognizing that experience is their truth; it’s about making sure the individual does not feel alone.
I know you don’t always know what to say, and sometimes there’s nothing anyone can say, but it means everything if you are just there. Show up, ask, or distract me—simply, be there.
Alone with my thoughts is sometimes a difficult place to be. They are wild and unhinged, my worries rooted deep and unflinching. I don’t want to hear that “everything will be okay,” I want you to be there.
Empathy is about recognizing vulnerability and connecting with it. Do not compare sufferings, respect them in their own right.
One’s reality is not invalid, because it does not make sense to you or affect you in the same way. They’re going through it, and it matters. You don’t have to understand, but you can try your best to.
I’m very grateful because there have been many people who have been there for me. However, there have also been a lot of people who haven’t. Be aware of your influence on people’s lives, and their influence on yours. It isn’t about having the right thing to say or being able to relate; it’s about effort and wanting to understand, even if you have never gone through the same things that the other person has.
More often than not, there are no “right words.” There is only you and that person, and that is all that matters—that they know they are not alone.
