Pathetic Excuse To Those Struggling: "I Didn't Know What To Say."

I got divorced in 2017. I reached out to a couple of people in the early stages of that happening, and honestly, a very small percentage got back to me at all, and the ones who did usually said something generic like “That’s too bad. I am here for you if you need me.” If I then subsequently reached out to them — remember, “they were there for me” — they’d usually not respond on that time, and then tell me something like “I was so busy with my young kids, you know?” It all eventually caused me to write this post on how, in general, people don’t necessarily want to help — they want to be let off the hook.

I was pretty angry during that time, or maybe a better word is I just felt like a completely irrelevant piece of shit. Here’s this big thing happening in my life, a seismic change, and seemingly no one can be bothered to care. Over time, I tried to reduce that anger by realizing that people prioritize what they want to prioritize , which is usually something about their own families, careers, hobbies, or trappings of success. Me getting divorced is a blip on the radar of many people, even some people I view as close. It should also maybe be noted that during roughly the same period, my cousin told me that “everyone in my family hates me” (fun!) and that’s why no one cared. So that was also a pretty helpful little tract of land to navigate.

Yesterday I sent an email to 1,300 people and mentioned I’m trying to stay sober these days , which seems like another relatively big topic, and I got one response out of the 500–600 people who opened it.

Generally in these situations, if you ask someone “Hey, you saw this big news and you didn’t respond, why is that?” — the response is often “I didn’t know what to say.” It makes sense on the surface. If you see a photo of a newborn in the operating room, you know what to say and do. You hit “like” on the photo, and you write “Congratulations!” or “So beautiful!” Same with a wedding photo, engagement photo, Easter family photo, etc. We know the drill on those.

The harder parts of life are harder for us to “know what to say,” but I for one would opine that it’s a bullshit excuse. You don’t need to write War and Peace back to a person who may be struggling; you don’t need to be an award-winning therapist. You just need to say “I know it’s hard, I understand, and I can help if I can.” That’s it. A few words. A simple text. Basic communication. Acknowledge and respond.

It’s sometimes amazing to me how the entirety of the human condition is rooted in a need for belonging, a need to be pulled into something bigger than you, a need for a tribe and community to help you survive … and yet modernity often runs in the counter-direction, especially in the age of COVID. In fact, it sometimes feels like we live in a machine designed to get us to neglect what is important about life.

When someone around you, or even cursorily in your orbit, seems to be struggling, just do something. Raise the bar even one centimeter. It matters more than you understand. “I didn’t know what to say” isn’t a fucking excuse.