Conquering Helplessness When a Loved One is Struggling

When a friend or loved one gets sick or goes through a particularly hard time, we all react differently.  Some of us shower that person with attention, phone calls, and offers to cook dinner or drive to appointments.  Others send flowers and a heartfelt card expressing our sympathy or inspiring our friends to rise to the challenge ahead.  Then there are those of us that recoil, avoid calling, emailing, or stopping by, all the while letting the guilt of our inactions pile on.

Likely, we have all found ourselves responding in more than one of the above ways.  But the reality is that each one of these reactions stems from a feeling of helplessness—fear that we cannot help a person that we love out of the situation they are in.  So, we respond in the way we were taught, or in the way we would like to be treated, or we don’t respond at all and try to deny that this terrible thing is happening to someone close to us.

At GiveForward, we hear stories every day of people battling an illness or battling the financial burden that an illness has caused.  Often, the problem is insurance related, and a friend or family member needs money to have a lifesaving procedure or needs to be released from the insurmountable debt that such procedures have put them under.

We knew when we started GiveForward that there were hundreds of thousands of people each year in this position.  In fact, the ability to fundraise for medical expenses is one of the main reasons GiveForward allows people to raise money even if they are not a non-profit.  So, we were not surprised when medical expenses fundraisers began to accelerate on the site.  But what has shocked us is the role that these fundraisers are playing in the lives of the people who love and care about the person battling or recovering.

Nearly every day now, we receive letters of gratitude…not from the people receiving money but from friends and family who feel empowered by the ability to share in their loved one’s struggle.  It’s not about the money.  It’s about the knowledge that they can be a piece of making someone they care about’s life a little bit better.

Even if fundraising isn’t the answer, if you have a friend or loved one experiencing a particularly rough patch right now, you’re probably not alone in recognizing it.  Get together with friends and find a way to help him or her…you’ll be amazed how strong you will all feel in the end.