Dumbass

I recently watched a short video about how to help someone who is going through a difficult time.  The psychotherapist, Megan Devine, is an expert on grief and loss.  She points out that, as friends and family, we naturally find it hard to leave our loved ones in pain and sadness.  Therefore, out of good intentions, we often try to cheer them up or tell them to focus on other things as diversion.  Our cheerleading efforts never seem to work because it just does not.  Worse still, it can back fire and makes the already bad situation even harder for all parties concerned. 

"It is pretty rare that you can actually talk someone out of their pain," Devine says.  As she puts it, you cannot help someone heal their pain by taking it away from them.  What really help is to let them be in pain and just offer to listen and witness it as they go through such difficult time.  It is hard, but it is the best we can do for the people we love.

It reminds me of an exchange I had with a friend many years ago.  

I met Kazuko in school in France.  It was like love at first sight: the two of us just hit it off the moment we met each other.  We became very good friends from that point on.  After graduation, Kazuko married Wolfgang and lived in Germany; Mike and I married and lived in Hong Kong.  We travelled all the way to attend the weddings of each other.

While it is great to find a loving husband and to live in a beautiful country together, life in a foreign land is never easy.  From my communications with my dear friend, I gathered that Kazuko had not been feeling very happy.  She sent me an update on her life.  It was filled with gloom . . . 

According to Kazuko, the economy was bad.  Many of Wolfgang's coworkers had been laid off, and that Wolfgang had been assigned to a different post.  She did not like her job, but she managed to keep it,  They used to have three months of annual vacation, but, under the new system, it had been cut to two.  Her mother moved from Japan to Germany to live with her sister.  Her sister got married and has a couple of children.  Every weekend, Kazuko and Wolfgang drove for two hours to go see them and to help watch the kids.  She found it tiring.  They used to live in a house.  But then, they found out how much work it was to maintain a house and a garden.  Their garden was the worst in the neighborhood and they were embarrassed by it.  They tried working on it, but the work was neither enjoyable nor successful.  It just took away the free time they would rather use for going to concerts and walks.  As a result, they decided to move into an apartment. 

While I could sense the dissatisfaction and frustrations in my friend's message, I was perplexed by her response to her situation.  To my eyes, her life was pretty good.

The economy is bad.  Many people are laid off, but they both get to keep their jobs.  In the US, the average vacation days for someone who has been working for 25 years is not even 16 days.  Having two months of paid leave is almost unheard of.  To see my family in Hong Kong, it would take me 26 hours.  Wouldn't it be great if my mom and sisters were just two hours away?  And she got to see the kids often.  My nephews and nieces grew up not knowing who I was.  And then they found out they prefer living in an apartment and went for it.  Now they get to spend more time doing what they really enjoy.  What is so bad about that?

Being Miss Positive, I shared my "alternative view" with her, hoping to help her see all the good sides of her situation.  And then, I heard nothing back.  

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

At the time, I was so certain that I got it and all we need is to get my friend to see her life in the right light.  

Just as I thought I was so smart, I was being the most insensitive idiot.  I failed my friend.

[Video: How To Support A Friend Going Through A Difficult Time]