Help Me Help You

How do you help someone who needs help?

Where is the line between giving someone helpful advice and stepping on their toes? What exactly is therapist/client privelidge when you come home to people who love you and want to know what’s going on inside your head, too?

I understand the importance of therapy. I went for about three months in ’05 and it helped a lot. However, let’s say, hypothetically, your roommate whom you’ve been living with for six months and been friends with for years starts seeing a therapist. I respect the individual’s right to privacy. I can see how one will spend an hour or so on the couch, and when you come to the sanctuary of home, what you’ve been dissecting for the past hour is the last thing you want to talk more about. Like confession, you say things in that safe little office that you don’t dare say to others, and just that fact alone is liberating.

But what if it’s me? Here’s the selfish part: what if I’m doing something detrimental to my friend’s growth? I feel I am justified in asking questions like, how was the doctor’s today? And do you want to talk about it with me? And what was a subject you talked about? So I am not in the dark.

I sound like my mother. “Just tell me what’s going on and I won’t have to worry!” Sheesh.

Still, I love my friends and want them to be happy, and I also know that some things are tricky to bring up on your own- you need a prompt first from someone else. So where does friendship end and mothering begin?