Dear Teentalker,
Thank you for sharing your concern about your friends’ wellbeing. She’s lucky to have such a supportive friend in you. Your friend seems to be going through something significant which I think she will be ready to share in due time but if it’s taking a toll on you, I’d suggest you talk it out with her.
Here are a few active ways to deal with this:
- Ask her if something is weighing on her mind and what makes her believe she’s ‘not good enough’ and praise her accomplishments.
- Be there.....
Dear Teentalker,
Thank you for sharing your concern about your friends’ wellbeing. She’s lucky to have such a supportive friend in you. Your friend seems to be going through something significant which I think she will be ready to share in due time but if it’s taking a toll on you, I’d suggest you talk it out with her.
Here are a few active ways to deal with this:
- Ask her if something is weighing on her mind and what makes her believe she’s ‘not good enough’ and praise her accomplishments.
- Be there for her and encourage her to talk to her parents.
- Try and set aside time for yourself as well and if it gets overwhelming, talk to a trusted adult for guidance.
Communicate with honesty that you have been concerned about her and ask what you can do to help. I can sense it may have been a rough ride for your friend and she may be undervaluing her capabilities. Sometimes when our hard work and effort goes unnoticed, we may suffer from low self-esteem where there’s no recognition or acknowledgement from our loved ones. This makes us second guess ourselves. Introduce her to some new activities which will help her explore and take a break from the monotony. At this point we can only assume what may or may not be a problem, so I feel directly asking her without pressurizing her would provide a better way to help out.
Here are some key pointers to keep in mind:
- Be there for her and encourage her every day. Also encourage her talk to her parents or write a letter to them. You could even accompany her to a teacher or a parent if you feel she’s just not able to bounce back. Sometimes it can lead to deeper core concerns like depression and/or anxiety.
- Don’t get too discouraged if she snaps back or does not respond too positively as you may have expected. It is common for a person to react but she’ll come around once she’s calmer.
- Watching a movie together or even just hanging out with her even if she doesn’t talk about anything, will give her safe place to process whatever it is that she’s going through.
A negative self-esteem largely stems from placing too many demands on the self and having too many ‘should’s’.Eg, ‘I should always come first in class’, this certainly helps you work hard but also adds a certain expectation which when unmet leads to a unhealthy view of self as you end up equating yourself with your grade or ranking. When we form certain internal constructs of how we should look, think or behave and don’t live up to it, it makes us believe we are not good enough.
Last and most importantly, please take good care of yourself too as helping a friend can be hard work. Even though your intentions are in the right place, you too can feel overwhelmed. Try and set aside time for yourself and do activities that you enjoy. Be a listener, be there for your friend but bear in mind you may not always get a positive response from your friend and that’s normal.
Hope this helps, if you have any other query do connect online for chat between 11am-8pm or drop us an offline message.
Regards,
Expert Teentalk India
