The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories Part 2: Thank You My Parasocial Support Network

This week I am focusing on my parasocial support network and how it supports my mental health. Note: I know my relationships with those in my parasocial support network are one-directional. 

In a panel at this year's DePaul Pop Culture Conference, such parasocial relationships were defined as those where "shared past experiences engendering familiar feelings 'nearly indistinguishable' from those shared with loved ones. " 

So while my parasocial support network is fully integrated into all aspects of my life, I am aware that the versions of these "characters" that I interact with are separate from their "real-life" counterparts.

My parasocial support network includes a shifting combination of personified real-life people, characters, and a couple of personified bookstores. 

If it were a TV show, Wentworth Miller and Three Avenues Bookshop would be the main cast, Gabriel Book and Book's (both from the TV show Bookish) would be season regulars, and Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff would be guest stars.

 
My parasocial support network understands what I am going through and the type of response I want/need. The second part is key because, in general, many of us do not know how to simply listen and hold space for others. 

Looking at a non-mental health example, I recently had a conversation where I touched on my experience with the Peace Corps, and while I think I am still glad I did it, I now see how it was not necessarily the best program for me.

Yeah, I didn't know I was neurodivergent at the time, so I struggled with many things, and I didn't know I needed supports, let alone what support I could have asked for. Now I can see how those struggles/situations have ripples that are still impacting my mental health.

Well, I had a friend who did Peace Corps and loved it.

Good for them, but in hindsight, personally, it just wasn't the best program for me.

Well, you should move on/"let it go."

I know that they didn't know that since Wentworth's post in March I had been thinking about where some of the thoughts and patterns I had internalized had come from and identified my Peace Corps experience and its impact on my ability to trust myself and my judgment.

But this conversation highlights some unhelpful responses to someone sharing parts of their personal story with you.

You should just get over it.

You should just do something everyone already has heard about, like going outside, and you will be all better because it helped "a friend of a friend twice removed," so clearly it works for absolutely everyone, no matter the context.

Hearing these types of responses indicates that the person is not someone I can actually talk to about my struggles, but overall are minor annoyances since I can just nod while thinking sarcastically, "Yes, clearly you understand."

The responses I most struggle with are those that are centered on the other person's discomfort with the topic, instead of on my struggle, under the guise of "caring."

OMG, you are struggling; the sky is falling. It's the end of the universe. OMG. What should I be doing? OMG. OMG. OMG.

When I am struggling, I don't have the "spoons"/energy to deal with managing someone else's overreaction to those struggles. And I realize that there is nuance, and it is not always clear-cut how someone's response is heard by me.

For example two similar situations that felt very different:

Probably close to a decade ago, sharing some poems online that very lightly touched on mental health. References like "Sometimes life is a struggle, and I am grateful for good books and being outside, which make me feel better," to which I got several direct messages: "Are you ok?" Is everything ok? Do you need help? Which felt like a major overreaction to my really quite mild poems.

In the past year, getting a direct message from a staff member at Three Avenues. "I noticed you haven't been to any events this week, and if it is just because you are busy, that is fine, but I just wanted to check in to see if you were doing ok." In this case it was just a case of me being home for a week seeing my parents, and me clearly not communicating well enough that I would be gone but it was nice to know they noticed when I was gone since I normally attended pretty much every event they host.

Both of these were objectively similar, but while the recent Three Avenues one made me feel seen and appreciated and like space was being held for me, the older one felt like a demand I explain that I actually doing ok so the other person would not worry/would not have to worry about me.

This is why I am grateful for my parasocial support network. I can tell Wentworth or Three Avenues that the "external voices" are getting loud again or that something is an "impossible task" right now, and they understand. They are willing to listen, put a hand on my shoulder, or give me a hug, and as a bonus, my parasocial support network is available 24/7.

In terms of how to have important but vulnerable conversations Wentworth Miller spoke about how to have conversations around mental health in his Oxford Talk back in 2016. Now this was for college students, so focuses on that experience, but it still gives some good ideas about how to have conversations around mental health more generally.

 

WM: ... There are a lot of people who know someone in crisis but they’re not sure what to say. Maybe they’re worried about saying the wrong thing. My suggestion would be to start there, approach that person and say, “I don’t know what to say, and I’m worried about saying the wrong thing but I see you, I feel like something’s going on, I want you to know that I’m here for you. If you need support, I can offer you that – you tell me what that looks like.” And that way you’ve acknowledged that you’re unsure, you don’t know what to do or say, you’ve acknowledged that you see them, they felt seen – they feel seen and they feel heard and acknowledged which is huge for someone who’s in crisis. Often people will turn a blind eye out of fear, they will just hope that that person kind of fixes themselves and – you know, “I hope you pull yourself together and then come back to us when you’re ‘fine.’” (Makes “air quotes” gesture.) But it also starts a dialogue. And that’s important. And then once you’re dialoguing with that person, once they feel like they have your support and once you’ve given them ownership of the conversation by saying to them, “You tell me what support looks like,” it allows them to feel that they are, to a degree, in charge of what’s going on with them, like, they get to make decisions which might be a new experience for them in depression, in anxiety. Then you can start to explore what other resources are available – maybe there’s something at the student health centre, maybe the administration has something in place, maybe there’s a peer-to-peer counseling and support group on campus, and if there isn’t, how do we get that started?