Venting Why does it take a full crisis for people to care?

[SimpleLivingThing]

I know that a lot of the time, I feel a lot better when I'm with other people than when I'm stuck at home by myself; the problem is that other people have their own stuff going on, so most of the time there's just no one available to spend time with. And I know that there are people who would drop everything to support me if I told them that I wanted to ctb, but the problem is that most of the time I've given up on trying to reach out to people once it gets to that point, but I feel guilty reaching out if I'm not in crisis. It takes a full blown crisis for people to be willing to inconvenience themselves and choose me, and I don't know, I guess I just want someone to see me and care about how I'm doing, even when I'm not on the verge of ending things. I know I'm bad at hiding when I'm not doing well, but it feels like no one cares anyway because I'm not literally about to ctb. But also, I can't expect people to read my mind, so maybe I should just give up

 

[pepperfarmer]

I think the current culture we live in is very individual-focused. People teach each other and themselves that the default when dealing with problems, whether material or psychological, is that they need to 'help themselves' first and then 'help others'.

I don't really believe it's possible to form effective support networks when support is treated as a currency you give away as charity or transaction. Humans are social creatures and most of our psychology is built around living with others; so when you try to engage with others around a premise contrary to that fact, bad things inevitably happen.

 

[sadbh—itstimetogo🤎]

I think the current climate is not one where people mean to make others feel abandoned, but everyone is individually dealing with their own needs, so it can be hard to look after others when it's not ingrained in us. I don't take it personally that people know I'm struggling and don't check in on me. Are you the friend you wish you had? I know I'm not.

 

[Kokonoe]

if it takes a full crisis for people to care, it's because they don't actually care. they only pretend to care when they are forced to.

 

[bl33ding_heart]

From my experience people will always underestimate your pain unless you're literally on the verge of killing your self. Unless you're quite literally about to ctb, they just see your suffering as something not bad enough to warrantee their intervention. It's not even necessarily that they don't care. But they just haven't gone through what you go through, so they can't truly know what it feels like.