Therapist Friends
Ever since I first saw my best friend taking mental health medication at the dinner table, I’ve enjoyed talking about mental health with friends. Although I have a reliable psychiatrist and supportive family, talking to friends in similar stages of life can be really helpful in figuring out how to deal with everyday problems as well as bigger things that come up.
Recently, I heard the term “therapist friends” applied to the kind of friendship where people feel comfortable telling each other about mental health issues and offering solutions for each other’s problems. Looking through my messages with the people I talk to the most, I can easily see that many of my friendships fall into this category.
Now that I feel comfortable sharing my diagnosis with my closest friends, I have found the experience cathartic, rewarding, and a key ingredient in friendship. Friendships now feel incomplete without this level of trust that comes from sharing something so intimate and personal, and in my experience, the therapist friend benefits as well, learning techniques to fight their own issues.
Not every friendship is suitable for this, whether due to a lack of comfort or a lack of desire to help with things like this. I even had a friend who interrupted me as I was telling her how I was struggling with flashbacks after my surgery to tell me, “I don’t care.” I’m still in touch with her, but don’t tell her more than the most shallow “I had a good day at work” kind of news in my life.
I will admit that it’s hard to be a therapist friend, especially for multiple people at once. Last month, I found myself supporting someone who lost her home and pets in a fire; someone going through emergency surgery only to suffer from flashbacks like the ones I used to have; someone living in an abusive situation and faced with physical and mental health challenges; and someone whose work schedule was overwhelming them to the point that they couldn’t spend time with friends or family.
It can be hard to find a balance between caring for other people and caring for my own mental health, especially when life deals a hard hand to several of us at once. But for me, finding and being a therapist friend is an incredibly rewarding experience that helps me get to know my friends better and widens my circle of support for whenever something bad happens on my end. It’s incredibly comforting to write a message to a few friends when things are going downhill and coming back to my phone a few minutes later to see messages of love and support.
My friends and I know each other’s coping mechanisms and what works best. I know who to distract with cute animal pictures or memes and who to ask for every detail about negative thoughts; who to invite for dinner or ice cream and who to give alone time to process what’s going on. Getting the right kind of support can be immensely helpful in dealing with a problem, from the smallest thing to the biggest. And with a friend who knows you well, you don’t have to explain how to help or what you need, which can take some frustration out of an already-difficult situation.
As a kid, I fell for the stigma and firmly believed that sharing my diagnosis or any of its effects on my life would mean I’d never have a friend again. As an adult, I now understand that it means that some friendships won’t work out, but the ones that do are stronger for it. I’ve never had a large quantity of friends, but people who fall into this category in both giving and receiving help are my closest friends. Since I trust them with who I am entirely and they accept me for who I am, and vice versa, the bonds formed by a friendship like this are unparallelled.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.