Supporting the supporters (first published 12.10.18)

My work as an oncology nurse has meant I have developed good listening and counselling skills over the years. However, the work with the online support group is certainly helping me extend my skill base and in a very different way.

I am blatantly aware that we are dealing with people at their most vulnerable and many have long standing effects of what they have been through. The virtual world allows for conversations that perhaps if you were standing in front of that person, would not occur or not with the same honesty – that has positives and negatives.

We try to signpost if someone is in obvious distress and ensure that guidance is given at the outset that we are only an opinion and a listening ear. I guess I bring to it my own baggage as well, my mother’s words ringing in my ears ‘you can’t solve the everyone’s problems’ being never more true. It is also true that those who have been ‘damaged’ for some time have become highly skilled at getting what they need and assessing where they can achieve this and from whom. Does this mean we should enter into every relationship with a degree of skepticism? Should we shy away from those that appear too needy or chaotic for fear we may make their situation worse? There are no easy answers but I think I would prefer to attempt to open myself up to the odd one who is more challenging than close myself to offering any support…

This does come with some personal risk though. Social media means that there is never any escape. As the phone pings a text message comes through, instagram tells you of another story, twitter keeps on twittering and facebook updates you on conversations you have only watched and not participated in. Everything feels like it has a sense of urgency – everything is a priority. My empathy becomes my down fall at times, I feel myself absorbing the chaos and confusion that some people bring and after they leave the conversation feeling lightened by the support, I find myself feeling heavy with the weight of their problems and frustrated that the advice given is not listened to. I confront in a gentle and supportive manner, but with an inquisitive nature when some information given does not quite add up. I reiterate to them the other side of the coin – this is not always received well and at times can cause conflict. Is conflict a bad thing? I have an inherent character flaw that means I find conflict a negative relationship. I always tend to assume I am in the wrong and see any confrontation as something to fear – something that only has a poor outcome. Turn this around though and conflict can be positive, even if one party doesn’t perceive it as such – I try to reflect, how was that for me? what could I have done better?

We are sadly living in a society where many people are alone and do not have the support networks of large extended families and friends, community groups or peers. Online relationships sometimes outnumber those in the real world and before we know it we can find ourselves having more conversation with “friends” on line than we have actually had face to face! When we meet up with friends they know everything that has been going on in our lives, by the facebook posts and photos so there is little left to talk about! As a reach out for many without other support available they are a life line.

A survey of our members showed that 64.6% of respondents suffered with their mental health and that over half of them did not know where to go for support. Recent articles in the nursing press have highlighted once again that as a profession we are poor at looking after each other’s mental health and even worse at looking after our own. This week has brought more awareness of mental health but has it really started the conversations – the Black Dog continues to bark.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly challenging and I am questioning whether my input to some is as positive as I previously thought it would be. In our daily life people come and go, constants of friends remain, some are with you for an intense period of time then drift away – some stay the distance. But in the virtual support world, it’s rather more tricky to know if what you are doing is getting it right. So, I try to “check in” with myself and ask others to do so for me too. A little nudge or reminder that I am distracted, my son pointing out the foibles of my age are grounding enough. Forgetting the log – in for the computer for the 50th time this week resulting in my husband threatening to tattoo it somewhere painful tells me it’s time for a break! Going upstairs and having to come straight back down as I can’t remember what I went up for – come on you know you do it too! I’ll blame it on life juggling and nothing to do with my age – menopause that will undoubtedly hit like a rocket some day soon, or the chaos of life with 4 kids, running a small business from home half of the week and nursing the other half.

Why then add to the mix, the online support group? Why do you do it? Because for all the demons it throws up, I love it. It is me – I’m as chaotic, challenging, needy and damaged as everyone else. It is the blood that runs through a nurse, the need to nurture others, to care. It is a continuous learning process and is fascinating and shocking sometimes all at once. I do it because it’s important, because it’s needed and I do it bloody well.

Andrew…what’s the password…!!!

please donate to our fundraising efforts – if you want your donation to go direct to legal support please type in “4legalsupport” in the comments.

Please sign our petition