While I was living in China, I once rode my moped a bit too far beyond the area of the city I knew, and I realized that I was lost and alone. As I imagined how my situation might play out, nearly all the scenarios I could think of were unsettling. I had no one else there who could come and help me. I was “at home,” but I felt a million miles away, and it was terrifying.
In her book Dust in the Blood, theologian Jessica Coblentz describes depression as “unhomelikeness,” and this is exactly how I felt that day when I got lost. Anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses can feel like losing your way in a place that should be familiar. That’s why those who live with mental health challenges need friends who still recognize the landscape and who can accompany them until it feels like home again.
There is wisdom in the proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Over the course of my adult life, I have learned from and been supported by the generous practice of accompaniment.
I first read about accompaniment in a course I studied with Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries. This form of companionship provides both practical and spiritual support, reminding others they are not alone. What a powerful gift to give to someone.
I know from personal experience the difference the accompaniment of friends can make. I’ve lived with mental health issues for most of my life, but soon after I began to study for my doctorate, my anxiety and depression reached levels I never thought possible.
As my first comprehensive exam approached, I grew increasingly anxious (not an unusual response in itself), and I realized there was a real problem about five minutes after I took the exam. As I was walking back to my car, suddenly I felt panicked, overwhelmed by dread and hopelessness. I called my doctor immediately, and he got me an appointment for the next day.
Now, five years later, I still have not fully recovered from this bout with anxiety and depression, but I’m still journeying because of the friends who have accompanied me along the way. When, unexpectedly, I had to leave a summer fellowship in another state due to a mental health crisis, a friend came to help my family and me get packed, fed, and on the road home so I could receive treatment.
Other friends showed up at our house with groceries and offered to help us get settled. When I was having trouble getting an appointment at the campus health center, a professor intervened, and within 30 minutes I had one scheduled. When I could not cook for my family, folks from my Sunday school class stopped by and sent gift cards and meals. When I could not pray (besides crying over and over again, “Jesus, please help me”), my advisor would call to let me know that he had lit a candle and been praying for me.
When I struggled to find a new therapist, my wife made countless phone calls and did numerous Internet searches to find me someone helpful. Each of these people accompanied me – some for a moment and others for months or even years.
Accompaniment is integral to friendship and a key practice to helping others survive mental health challenges and illnesses and thrive in their minds, bodies, spirits, and communities. I’ve experienced mental illness, and I’ve studied friendship. I am convinced that commitment and persistent presence are an essential part of this generous practice of accompaniment.
It’s about commitment, not necessarily expertise. Experts are only in the day-to-day lives of people with mental health challenges at appointed times and in specific roles. Friends accompanying someone on a mental health journey often make themselves available at all hours of the day and night. As I reflect on the times in my life when I have been in a mental health crisis, I realize that most of the people who accompanied me were not professionals, but friends who helped care for me when I could not care for myself – and who continue to support my flourishing.
The friends (and especially my wife) who accompanied me to appointments and made sure I kept putting food in my body, and who were persistent about seeing to it that I got the professional care I needed, are as responsible for me being alive and (relatively) well today as those who provided professional care. Although I was only trudging along, they slowed down with me to put my arm over their shoulder and pull me forward until I regained the strength to walk alone. Now I am even able to offer my shoulder to other friends as I accompany them in their mental health journeys.
This generous accompaniment is not about fixing problems, but letting a friend know that, no matter what they face, they will not face it alone. Jesus did not tell his followers their lives would be easy, but rather promised the faithful presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit (John 14). God promises to never leave or forsake us, to accompany us all the way through this life. God has called us to do likewise for those for whom making the journey seems impossible right now.
As others accompany us, we can find our way collaboratively in landscapes that no longer feel familiar. We can move from languishing to flourishing and, possibly, even rediscover home. When one is walking in the loneliness of distress, others may not be able to fix the problems leading to that distress. Anyone, however, can accompany a person experiencing mental illness in hopes that the journey back to a home-like feeling might reach the destination of flourishing – no matter how long the road.
This story was originally published by, and is used here with permission from, Sanctuary Mental Health.
