support – Anna Down South

Being someone’s support person is a hard job, but as a human being who needs support, we also need to be able to give it back.

Mental illness and life’s hard moments both are known for knocking us down, and when we get knocked down we need someone more than ever. But honestly, just being alive requires having support, having someone to cheerlead you on. We need that positive push to get us through, we need someone to cheer us on when we win, and comfort us when we lose.

When you have a mental illness, or have gone through a really rough patch, it’s easy to take more support than you give, that’s okay, sometimes we need that, but I really want to talk about giving support back and creating those kinds of relationships.

Going out of your way to support someone is hardly ever going to backfire, especially because to start out, those relationships don’t take a lot out of you. They start small with words of encouragement and some extra time spent caring, then it turns into some of those bigger support tasks (whether it be waiting in the ER with someone or watching their children when they need help). Support is about being there. It’s about being a kind voice of reason and being excited for people. It’s taking an everyday good relationship and pouring a little more effort into it than you feel like is a hundred percent necessary.

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I’m trying to lose weight. Not a lot, but about ten pounds. I struggle with it because I don’t practice self control around food very well. Maybe it’s because I know I’m not that overweight. Maybe it’s because I like food too much. Whatever the reason, I failed at controlling myself for a week or two before I realized if I was going to do this I needed to find some sort of system to fix it.

I joined a Facebook group for weight loss support. I felt silly in it. People were trying to lose mass amount of weight and here I was trying to drop ten pounds. It seemed like maybe this wasn’t the place for me. But it was, not because I related to all the posts, in fact, a lot of them I don’t. It worked because I was constantly reminded of my goals, I was constantly reminded that I was trying to do this and I had decided that it mattered enough to me to join a group, or to comment.

I saw the posts when I logged on. I got notifications on my phone when people commented on something I had commented on.

Some people would argue that it was the support that I needed, but I haven’t made posts to have people support my journey. I’ve rather been supporting others. Dishing out support might be helpful, but it’s helpful in the same way giving your friend advice is helpful. It reminds you that you know what you’re supposed to be doing. You have all this knowledge, you just need to apply it! It’s simple if you get control over yourself.

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