Communication

One of the best bits of advice I’ve had in recent months was to get Julie talking to her dad, Joe, without me acting as intermediary.  It was a family support worker who suggested it, gently, when I tried to explain the tangles I was getting into.  Get her to talk to him directly about her self harm, and about her therapy, and about what it means to her.  Don’t keep trying to tell him yourself: get her to tell him.

I know communication is important – even more important in a family like ours where mental illness causes serious disruption of normal life.  But it is easy to forget how powerful direct communication between two people can be.  It is easy to confuse communication with sharing information – which can be done by email or text or somebody else passing a message on.  But communication is not just sharing information, it’s also about connection.

How did we get to the point where Julie wasn’t talking to her father directly?  Lots of reasons, none of them reflecting badly on anyone. He works long hours so he simply isn’t here as much as I am. He isn’t at home to talk to.  When he is around, he’s tired: the last thing he wants is to come home and walk straight into a serious conversation. After years of coping with one crisis after a other, he’s also very anxious and vulnerable to stress.  I often feel protective towards him.  You do need a break some times – some times it is a kindness one partner can do for another, sheltering them a little from the relentless onslaught of bad news.  But its also easy to shelter your partner too much: go on too long and the sheltered partner gradually loses track, becomes disconnected from the situation, finds it hard to follow what is happening.

Asking Julie to talk to her dad was a gamble.  I knew he was feeling pretty beaten up by the events of this winter.  I had tried to explain what a big deal it was to Julie the one time she didn’t take an overdose (two months ago), why it was ground for cautious optimism, but I could see he was too exhausted to understand.  He couldn’t get past the fact she had nearly tried again.  I knew there was a risk he would reject her attempts to talk.

Julie picked her moment well, and I could see immediately that it worked.  When Joe came back from his trip to the coffee house with her, it was as if a huge load had been lifted from his shoulders.  A few days later he confessed to me how proud he had felt that she was confiding in him.  It was so much easier for him to keep playing his part supporting her now he felt more involved.