i’d like to offer my own little “formula” of sorts, because usually when i’m being Supportive, i’m doing it here through asks, or otherwise in a digital space where it’s more difficult to use the above advice of asking questions and listening to a lot of talking. like, when i get an anon telling me about their issue, i can’t initiate a lengthy dialogue, i have to give a single answer.
the first thing you do is make is clear that you’ve heard and understood someone’s pain and/or struggle. you say something like, “i’m so sorry you’re going through this, it sounds really difficult.” acknowledging someone’s pain helps them to feel like you care and you’ve paid attention.
THEN you can kick in a short personal anecdote to relate to the person. to use the last person’s example, let’s lengthen this to, “i’m so sorry you’re going through this, it sounds really difficult. when my cat died a couple years ago, i was absolutely devastated. our pets are really more like our family, and losing them is so hard.”
this functions as an extension of the above effort to make the person feel heard and understood. by relating a similar experience and saying how difficult it was for you, it communicates effectively that you get what the other person is going through.
next, it’s important to distinguish between advice and support. advice is like “this is what i think you should do” but support is more like offering concepts that might be comforting and/or helpful.
so while you should hold back on advice until you’ve been asked for it or it’s appropriate to ask them if they want advice, support is usually fine to offer unprompted. (keep in mind that lots of people don’t like to be given platitudes or told “everything is going to be okay.”)
for example, after i’ve said the last sentence, i might follow up with something that going through that difficult situation taught me. “as hard as it is to let your pet go, i’ve realized that i was able to give them the best, most loving life they could’ve had during the short time they’re here on this earth, and it helps me to remember that.”
with that, you haven’t told the other person what to do or how to feel, you’ve just given an insight that they can think about and will hopefully be supportive.
obviously not every instance will be that easy to cut into these pieces, but that’s the basic framework that i try to operate in.
and for other (neurotypical) people who might feel like this type of scripting means that someone is bullshitting their compassion - scripting doesn’t mean faking. it just means that social interaction doesn’t come as naturally to us as it does to you, and having some loose rules to follow helps us figure out how to behave in a way that appropriately communicates the feelings we’re actually trying to communicate.
prguitarman
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