Am I A Sicko?
Am I too screwed up in my head? That is actually what my life-long friend asked me the other day. We spend about 30 minutes talking about why he thought he might be beyond hope. After that we spent another 15 minutes talking smack to each other, belly laughing as we went. We both felt better.
I resisted the temptation to tease him and say yes as soon as he asked. I have literally known him all of his life - so I have plenty of evidence that he is a genuine sicko - in harmless ways that close friends tease each other about. I also know that he has had plenty of really hard things tossed his way, and some of them really derailed his life and living.
I could tell even before he asked the question that he was in a reflective state - maybe too reflective. His voice was deeper and slower than usual. He was questioning some deep things - about himself, about his past, but especially about his future. That last one was I was most excited and encouraged by!
He is one year into a pretty significant life re-start. This is after years and years of a slow-burn death spiral - and I mean it. He almost died - and in his words - “from his own doing”. But in the last year, he has been doing some major life renovation. It started with changing some of his habits - actually most of them. First he worked on physical habits that were affecting his health - that why he almost died. After that he spent quite a bit of time working on his spiritual habits. And now, he is working on emotional habits. That is a great formula by the way - one I wrote about in my book Emotalerting: The Art of Managing the Moment (available on Amazon).
After he shared more thoughts on why he was thinking he was broken beyond repair, I immediately told him why I thought there was no way he was too broke to fix. It was really simple.
For one, he had a year of proof that he wasn’t too far gone. He had successfully overcome many obstacles and bad habits and life choices. He had even restarted his career one week before this. And second, he was questions that verified he wasn’t too far gone. I assured him that if he was “too sick in the head to change” - his words again - then he wouldn’t have called me and he wouldn’t have been asking the questions he was asking.
I was pretty happy when we were done. I was honored that he called me - that he trusted me with his doubts, that we would let me life-coach him, and most of all that he was owning his brokenness and turning it in growth. And the biggest thing was he called me - he reached out!
Unfortunately, I don’t think many men are reaching out to their male friends for help. Men aren’t seeking help from anyone very often. They need help - we all do. Men have as many problems as the next person - male or female. Years of studies show over and over that men have just as many emotional struggles as women, but definitely seek help less often than women do.
And when they don’t seek help, their doubts, questions and struggles spin around in their heads, and their hearts (because they have those too) like a blizzard until they think they are “too far gone to fix.” And they let it it go until the next blizzard churns up again. They never end up getting their doubts and issues resolved.
When having questions and issues like my friend, most men “act out”. They work it out at the gym, or yell it out in an angry argument, or drink it out in booze binge, or even sex it out with a meaningless sexual encounter. These only make it worse because now there are more unhealthy issues to deal with…except for going to gym - that’s almost always a good outlet - as long as you still do the real work of working out your other issues when you are done.
An alternative could be to reach out to a friend and ask if they have a minute to talk about something. Most friends will feel the honorable weight of this ask and say yes. They may get nervous, thinking they won’t know what to say. But a lot of the time, they will know what to say because they are your friend. If they don’t, it is still ok, because when no one is listening to us, it is really nice to have someone who will - even if they don’t have an answer.
So give it a try next time you are struggling with some pesky doubts and struggles. Let your friend know. I’ll bet you’ll be glad you did, and so will your friend.
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