EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND INDEPENDENCE: ARE THEY REALLY DICHOTOMOUS?

I have some really, truly wonderful friends. And going through a major transition like a deployment is bound to show you how desperately you need them. I am a social person, and I need my friends. I process by talking with people I trust. But on the other hand, I want to feel I can be an independent, capable person, and words like "desperately" and "needy" do not seem to fit with that idea so well.

The desire to be independent is a very Western idea. And it is confusing because I have these two battling parts of myself. On the one hand, I need people and I know I need people. I love that I have supportive friends, and I can reach out to them and know I can depend on them to be there for me and hang with me when I'm having a tough time about something. On the other hand, I want to have some level of self-sufficiency and not make my friends feel like they have to be ready at my beck and call to be whatever I may need when I crumble at the drop of a hat for quite possibly the entire coming year.

Going through something significant as a counseling student is a funny thing. In the Western world, we are praised for being individualistic rather than collectivistic, and for being driven and hard working. We are applauded if we are so committed to our work that we work overtime and consume ourselves with our careers, and when we drive ourselves into the ground - nose the the grindstone, as they say. But as counselors in training, self care is hammered into us, and we study how to be there for and guide others through the most difficult of times. In fact, counseling is the only profession I know of where you are actually being unprofessional and unethical if you don't take care of yourself wholistically. In the ACA Code of Ethics, self care is talked about and as deserving of credence as confidentiality or promoting client autonomy and avoiding anything that could open the door to exploitation. That's a big deal.

Another funny thing about being a counseling student is the amount of times you find yourself practicing skills in the client role. In my basic skills and techniques class, I was in a client role as much as I was in the counselor role. As a graduate student assistant, part of my job is observing students' practice and giving feedback, and also being in demonstrations for the students as counselors and clients. In today's case, I agreed to be a client for a friend because her internship site does not let her video sessions with clients, even if they were to consent, and for internship class there is a requirement to video 2 sessions in a semester. Our session served as a substitute, and as always, as the client I used real things so the counselor could work with real emotion.

As I said in my last post, I have been feeling more fragile, and having all this emotion roiling under the surface just waiting to be tapped into at any moment makes me feel unsteady. I questioned whether being more fragile made me less independent or less capable. I don't want to be pitied, and I don't want confused or sad looks down the hall at school or in my practicum and internship settings next year. I want to be professional, I want to be academic, and blubbering down the halls doesn't exactly scream "I am a strong, independent, capable professional!" In my mock session with my friend, I realized how much I have been struggling with the dichotomy between independent and capable and in need of emotional support. She pointed out that it seemed I believed that if I need emotional support, I can't simultaneously be independent and capable.

At first I thought, "Of course I can't! Independence is the polar opposite of neediness." But I didn't like the sound of that, because it was in direct conflict with the part of me that knows how critical self care is, and that we are created relational people and we were made to need one another. We need God first and foremost, but there is a reason why in Genesis 2:18 God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Human relationships in their purest forms, especially marriage relationships, are supposed to mimic our relationship with God. Human relationships fall below the standard every time because humans are imperfect, but we were made to crave relationships. Studies have shown that hospital patients with physical ailments who have social support fare far better than those that do not. Studies also show that the most important aspect of counseling is not the theoretical framework the clinician uses but the counseling relationship itself.

Clearly, social support is directly related to our physical and psychological wellbeing. We need each other and are better off when we are willing to lean on each other. There is something to be said for Job's three friends who, seeing the depths of his physical and emotional despair, simply sat with him in silence for seven days. Their helpfulness pretty much evaporated once they started talking, since they said the wrong things and God Himself set them straight after that, but Job's friends were there for him and probably provided quality comfort during that time. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says that "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."

So why do I have such a hard time trying to find the balance between independence and emotional support? I want to be understood and validated without being pitied, and I want to be able to exhibit excellence at work and at school without having my emotional fragility infringing on my professionalism. But I also know that there will be both good days and bad days. Sometimes I will have bad days, and I will need the support of my friends. As the friend I mentioned in my last post pointed out, I need to grow to be okay with not being okay for a while. Sometimes I will need to call a friend, or ask to drop in, or pull someone aside and maybe just cry with them for a while. I will need to know that I can depend on the safety net of my amazing support system. I consider myself to have good coping skills, and let myself sit in emotions when I truly need to (though I could work on this more), so I was surprised by the resistance I found in myself when trying to reconcile the ideas of independence as it relates to being a capable person, and dependence on others for support and friendship.

I have noticed that I feel proud of myself when I am doing "well." I tell myself I have only had two legit meltdowns since when I found out he was deploying at Christmas after the roller coaster definitely going, definitely staying, just kidding he's going again whiplash. Aside from these meltdowns, I have been doing great! I've had a few choke-up moments throughout that time, but nothing too major, and I've been doing really well overall. But I need to stop being proud of myself for that. Because if I am proud of keeping it together to whatever standard of "together" I have arbitrarily set for myself, I am in danger of viewing moments when I don't have it together as failures. I am bound to have meltdowns and be a basketcase sometimes. It's pretty much guaranteed. And I would think I was a whole different kind of crazy if I didn't experience times like that. Pride is driving my need to be professional and academic. I need to take one day at a time, like my friends have challenged me to do. I am horrifically terrible at taking it one day at a time.

Maybe the Western world and all the values we've been inundated with aren't the best values. Maybe we believe them and forget they are cultural values, that different cultures believe different things, and that our way may not always be the best way. Trying to be a high functioning human being without social support and adequate self care is like a car trying to run on anything other than gasoline. It was made to run on gasoline, and to quote C. S. Lewis as he made the same analogy of people trying to live without God, it would not run properly on anything else.

Part of being a high functioning, independent person is knowing when you need help and having the humility to admit you aren't the first and only person on this planet to have it all figured out.

I have some really, truly wonderful friends. They continue to remind me how much they love me and are willing to be there for me, just like I am willing to be there for them. I am going to be a little more fragile over the next year. I will simultaneously learn how to be more independent, and part of how to be a mature, high functioning independent person is actually knowing when you need help, communicating your needs through appropriate channels, and having the humility to admit you aren't the first and only person on this planet to have it all figured out. I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I relapse a lot. But nobody can do all the things all the time, no matter how much they try. Only God can have everything under control all the time, and He does. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matt 6:34)."

*Photo courtesy of Blue Barn Photography