A Phone Call Away

Do you know how to be an effective advocate for your beloved one or friend when they're dealing with a mental health issue? Do you know how to respond, whom to contact for help? Have you ever been faced such a challenge?

I was always been the on the go friend. I'm that someone who's A Phone Call Away. Because no matter how busy I am, I make time when someone reaches out to me.

It was me who receives late night texts asking for advices. I'm the who sneaks out of our house to go to clubs and bars just to accompany my friends.

Do you know why? Why I always listen?

Back in fifth grade I met a girl about a year older than me when we moved houses. At first my eldest brother scolded me because I was constantly hanging with that girl. He thought she was a boy because she has a boy cut hair that time, almost skin head. Later he found out that she was a girl and even a sister of his old friend back in elementary days.

After that knowledge, the girl and I became inseparable. We do things together all the time. One day, I asked her why she doesn't attend school and she said they were so poor her parents couldn't afford it. The next school year my mom offered to sponsor her in return she would help in our store. She gladly accepted it and by that time she was almost living with us.

I would go to my friend's house from time to time and because I was young and naive, I didn't really see that they were struggling. When I saw his father filtering rice from the plates they have eaten and dry it on their roof for him to cook as fried rice. It didn't came to me as peculiar, I accepted that it was their way of living.

When I was about to enter highschool, I was taken by me sister with her to a new town. I left my friend but my mom continued to support her studies until second year of highschool when she also moved with us because our business went bankrupt.

Social media wasn't a thing back then. I have a phone but my friend doesn't, eventually we lost contact.

Four years after our last meeting, I visited my childhood town. She wasn't on my head that time but something occured to me that made me remember her. I giddily went to their house and found out that my friend committed suicide. She was gone.

She didn't get to finish highschool. Her mom died of tuberculosis. His brother was murdered because of drugs. And she wasn't accepted to the jobs she kept applying to.

I went home that day with a broken heart. I thought to myself that if and only I made the effort to reconnect with her, she might still be alive. Thus from that day on, I promised myself that if someone needed me, I would make the effort to come.

I wouldn't be asked twice nor I would ask why.

I already lost someone and I wouldn't like to go there once again.

I became the friend who never gets tired of listening. Because the best thing you could offer someone lonely or broken is a pair of ears. You don't need to say anything you just have to listen.

And one of the most important thing I learned from experience is to never use the word 'but' or compare someone's situation to others. We have our own unique lives, we have our own struggles. What's hurting you may be different to what's hurting others.

I have my own traumas in life. I have my own difficulty reaching out to others. I have my own issues that's why I know how hard it is. How a single pat on the shoulder is a great help on boosting a friend's morale.

Right now, my eldest brother was having difficulty facing his reality. He has no job because of the pandemic. His girlfriend left him. It was two years ago since he last left our house. I have talked to him about his mental health if he is aware on what he is doing with himself. I also kept reminding my family that what my brother's feeling are real. He just needs professional help.

Though I still have a long way to make my brother talk to a psychiatrist. For now, I make sure that he has someone to talk to. That his feelings are getting validated. And that I'm just here, A Phone Call Away whenever he needs me.

Remember we are in today's generation where mental illness are accepted into society, where it is not caused by evil spirits anymore. We can talk, it's okay to accept that something is wrong with you.

I was tagged by @ruffatotmeee to participate in this week's contest. Now I'm calling @gyrag @teacherlynlyn @jenthoughts @yen1503 to also give it a go.

Thank you again! Hasta Mañana!