Advice

Nobody Understands

March 31, 2017

QUESTION

My sister has Leukaemia and nobody understands how I feel; I don’t know how to talk to my friends anymore as I feel so different to them. I hate it when they say they understand what I am going through because they can’t. I feel so alone I don’t know what to do, please can you tell me what I should do?

Answer from the Suzie Hope Team

This sounds like a really difficult situation for you. It seems that you need your friends support and yet they don’t seem to understand. Your friends are probably doing their best, but may not be able to understand all of your feelings and worries as they are not having the same experience as you are.

It might be that your friends can still be there for you when you need to take some time away from what is happening at home, to have some fun and relax. Maybe you can still do the same things with them that you always have?

However, when we are trying to cope with new and very hard experiences it is quite normal to begin to believe that you are all alone with these things and that nobody understands. If your friends can’t offer you the emotional support and understanding that you feel you need right now, then maybe you can look elsewhere for that.

You might find that talking to an adult like another family member, a trusted teacher or a health worker is helpful. Or the  Suzie Hope Team  can offer you a safe and private way to share your worries with one of our support facilitators. You can always  send us a Facebook message  or  email us  if you would like to find out more.

You are right that nobody else knows what it is like for you or what is going on in your head every minute. However, if someone really wants to help and support you and tries to understand what is going on, then this is a real advantage. Having someone else to offload with can be very beneficial and supportive so you don’t feel quite so alone and it doesn’t seem quite so heavy.

Other young people who are in a similar situation to you may be able to understand some of your feelings and worries a bit better. You could  join our closed Facebook group – WeAre Hope – which is a safe place to share and connect with other young people and the support facilitators who are more likely to know what you are going through.