Stopping the Downward Spiral

I've been friends with Dawn for thirty-two years. She knows me and I know her better than probably anyone else does. When she is in pain, I feel that pain. She's in pain now.

In the last year, she's had a grown daughter turn away from her, a major home fire, infidelity, divorce proceedings, the people at her church turn against her because she was too needy, trying to find her way in a new church, a move, financial problems, a broken ankle, and a host of other things. If you looked at the list of "major life events" that counselors like to quote when deciding how much stress a person has, her life would include about everything on the list.

I spend as much time with her as I can. I usually have more free time than she does, but I make myself available for her visits or phone calls whenever she needs to talk. Lately, I've seen her slowly crumbling and I seem at a loss to stop it. When she comes by to visit lately, she always cries. Or she comes in looking like she's been crying for hours. She tries very hard to put into words what is bothering her, but most of the time she's at a loss and says things like, "I don't know what's wrong with me lately" or "I usually handle things better than this." I try to talk to her, try to encourage her, try to offer words of wisdom (which for me is really reaching!), but I see her spiraling down.

I wonder if it's menopause, because she's two years behind me in age, or if she's about to have a nervous breakdown, or if it's just something she'll pull out of when her life calms down. But since I've had one friend commit suicide, there's a part of my gut that feels this dread, and I feel helpless to know what to do.



I've been at the place where she is. I had a completely different set of problems than she does, but it wasn't the magnitude of the problems, but just the fact that I became unable to cope with things I used to breeze through. I had a guy tell me once that I needed to take better care of myself because some day I would "hit that brick wall that's been looming." He was right. I ended up in a crying heap in the psychiatric hospital for two weeks, being the guinea pig for medicines to determine what would help, what would hurt, and talking to strange doctors who asked questions I had no answer to, like "Who are you mad at?" I spent two weeks there. I made some major life changes with the help of my family, and I came out feeling a lot of anxiety and, for the first time in a long time, hope that my life would be easier now.
During my breakdown, my friend, Dawn, visited me regularly. She encouraged me. She told me I would be ok. Now I'm trying to say those things to her, but I still wonder if any of it is going to prevent her hitting her brick wall. And I'm very scared for her. And I have no idea what to do.