AJ C.
Photography by Jessica Pentel
If you’re reading this, it’s okay to be a burden.
One of the worst parts of having a mental illness is feeling guilty about asking your friends for help. It’s hard enough to admit to yourself and others that you’re in pain, but to feel as though you’ve put that pain on others is almost crippling.
During this past summer as I was just coming to terms with the fact that I had a mental illness, there was a period of time where I spent nearly every night at a different friend’s apartment because I was afraid to be by myself in my own room.
Soon, my reliance on my friends became itself a source of anxiety and self-loathing—my friends poured so much time into taking care of me and I never gave them anything in return.
Things improved a little and as I started the semester I told myself I could be more self-sufficient. I went through several episodes where my friends kept me grounded in ways which I can never repay them.
So, the feelings of being a burden resurfaced. No matter how many times my friends said “call me if you need me” or sat with me while I lay on the floor crying during a panic attack, I just couldn’t accept that they wanted to be helping me.
Then, one night, as I sat in the passenger seat of my friend’s car, driving around Charlottesville at one in the morning waiting for my depressive episode to pass and talking about how poorly I felt putting so many of my problems on him he said something which completely changed the way I viewed myself, my mental illness, and my friendships.
He said to me “yeah, you’re a burden. But that’s okay because that’s what it means to have a relationship with someone. Sometimes I’m a burden on you and sometimes you’re a burden on me but that’s good, and it doesn't have to be even.”
I was floored. Though I had never hesitated to help any one of my friends when they needed it, I always thought of it as just what friends do. It was then that I realized that people don’t help each other because they happen to be friends, they help each other because that’s what friendship is.
Friendship isn’t having fun together—you can enjoy someone’s company immensely and still be just an acquaintance. Friends, on the other hand, are people that you can spend time with when neither of you is okay.
Relationships are difficult—they require time and energy and hard work. If spending time with someone is purely fun then you don’t really have a relationship.
So, when you feel as though you are burdening your friends remember that they’re not helping you because you’re friends, you’re friends because they’re helping you, and they’re helping you because your relationship is worth it.
You’re worth it.
AJ C., University of Virginia
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