Sometimes I feel I can't help anyone

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well.

In the past, I used to talk to people with social anxiety or depression through chat on facebook or forums like this, and I always tried to help them feel better or I tried to give them some advice or at least just some kind of support, so that they felt they were not alone. But that situation has changed lately, since I don't feel I can do much for people telling me their problems at the moment, at least most of the time. How can I say it, it is as if I felt weak inside right now, I don't feel the strenght to support anybody else, maybe because it's hard for me to find the strenght within myself. Sometimes my problems become so overwhelming that I feel exhausted and I need to rest. And for that reason most of the time I feel "useless". But I know that I can't help anyone if I am not well first.

How can I get a balanced attitude towards this? thank you very much for reading

I totally understand you, most of the time I try to help people with their problems even knowing that for one reason or another I'm dying on the inside, it is difficult and I really believe that the only way for one person to be able to keep going is to heal her/himself first...

I don't know what kind of problems you may be encountering right now, but you should try to clear your mind, take care of yourself or even let yourself being taken care of by someone else... if you have a person that can listen to you too, try to help each other out, so you can give the best of yourself to other people again.

Thank you very much for your response Siegfried, I think you said wise things. Yes, sometimes we also need to be taken care of by someone else and we should take care of ourselves first in order to be able to help other people be fine. That's what I try to do when I feel bad, I just get away from everything for a while and try to do whatever I can to feel better.

Yes, I also try to do that, whenever I have the chance to help anyone with anything, I try to do it the best way I can, and of course I happily accept the help and advice that other people can give to me too.

I hope you're fine, thank you dear Siegfried God bless you

My pleasure Ana, i really hope you can do well in the future, and if you ever need a listener you already know where you can find one God bless you too

I used to do the same thing, I would listen to people in need and give them advice or let them know I am there for them. I was happy doing that, but whenever I was down and in need of someone to listen they would all vanish. And now I can't seem to find anyone I can relate to. I've tried so many sites and forums but they were either not frequented by people or nobody would answer. Tried group chats but everybody seemed to know everybody for years and they had their own topics to talk about and were not paying too much attention to new members. I tried a site where you can talk in private with a "listener", but that did not work for me either. The other person was very distant and not relatable at all. I mean, I understand that that were the rules of the site, I later learned them myself after doing a training to become a "listener" myself. I thought it would be a great idea to help people in need. But that didn't work because of the site rules. You could not say anything about yourself, you could not ask questions, god forbids to give any sort of advice, you could only say a few sentences really, like "I see; I understand; Ok, go on; and what do you think you can do about that?". I mean, it was such an awkward conversation. It felt like you were talking to a robot not another human being. Maybe I'm wrong but a person going through something like anxiety, depression etc, needs to talk to someone they can relate to or at least that can understand. I don't think they know how to solve the issue they have on their own, that's why they were seeking help in the first place, right? There is no difference between writing to someone who only listens and writing that same thing in a diary. At least, that's how I felt. I only tried helping one person, he kept telling me how awful he felt and that he did not know what to do to change that and all I could say was "yeah, I understand, tell me more" (because that was all that the site allowed). After 10-15 minutes, the person disconnected without saying a thing, and to be honest I didn't blame him, he was probably feeling like he was talking to a wall.

Thanks a lot Siegfried

UnderGroundK something similar occured to me. Many times when I need someone to be out there for me I can't find anybody. Not because they don't want to help me, but simply because I feel that what makes me suffer is so deep that nobody can do anything to help me from "the outside".

Oh, I know a site like that too (perhaps it's the same site, haha). I've also visited it and I've talked to a few people there when I needed someone who would listen to me. I agree with you when you say that that this kind of help may not be very useful when you are looking for some kind of advice or guidance. In this case I think the best thing to do is to consult somebody who is capable of doing that, not just listening. I think this sort of sites may be of help when you only need to unburden yourself with somebody, then it's ok. As when people used to write in a diary as you said. Sometimes you just need to be heard and that's enough to feel better. But in other occasions we do not only want to be heard, but we need support and some kind of help or advice. In those cases we should look for another kind of sites or people who could provide us with that kind of help.

I really hope you are better too. A big hug for you and God bless you, thank you very much for your message.

Thanks, I'm trying everyday to take small steps to overcome my social anxiety and this week I really felt like I made some progress. But sometimes it's so hard to have nobody that can understand what you are going through. Like you said, maybe some people feel the need to be heard but for me that is not enough, I've tried many times to tell my story but nobody understood or they just brushed me off. And the most annoying part is that in my country, unless you have like a very bad mental illness (dementia, Parkinson or schizophrenia), nobody will take you seriously when you tell them that you have anxiety or depression. They will be like "Oh, come on, it's all in you head, get over it already!". And many of them don't even know what that is. It really sucks. I've lost so many "friends" because they could simply not understand what I was talking about or why I acted in some certain way sometimes.

Thanks for listening anyway! And a big hug for you too.

Im a bit in the same boat here. I can help people and be with people authentically - once Ive gone through my own roll out of junk in my own head. And then I can find answers and then perhaps get some third eyes and then try to social with others on here.

We are all in this together anyway. We get insights from each other. There have been so many times when I thought I was helping someone and it turned out that it was more they were helping me with their own stories.