Friends Helping Friends
Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash: Photo description: Street art on a bridge underpass wall reading “let’s love our community.”
Coming Soon!
An Ongoing Series Dedicated to Community Care
Friends Helping Friends will be a recurring series where I share my experiences with helping friends navigate difficult situations and highlight some salient points and useful resources that come up often so that you can do the same for others to the extent that you’re willing and able to.
In the United States (where I’m living), our healthcare system is shit. It’s expensive, hard to navigate, inequitably-resourced, and quality mental health care is not prioritized adequately so it’s a resource that not all folks have equal access to. Sometimes friends, family, and communities are the safest and most accessible resource one has to get care for a mental health crisis. My goal is to provide you with a basic understanding of each post topic, some things that you can do as a friend/loved one for your friend/loved one in crisis, and very importantly, when the situation is beyond your scope.
What is scope? We’ll talk a lot about scope. Scope in the context of these posts is the extent and breadth of your knowledge, ability, and capacity to handle a given situation at a given time. This includes personal boundaries which you are very strongly encouraged to have and maintain. Bold font, you can tell I mean business about those boundaries.*
Content warnings will be posted for each section so if you are not feeling a certain subject, feel free to pass over that one.
If you have any topics you’d like to hear about, or a situation you’d like me to weigh in on, don’t hesitate to drop it in the Anonymous Question Box or email me!
My usual Disclaimer regarding medical and mental health conditions, diagnoses, and treatments:
Allie Riker of Laser Accuracy Life Coach is not a licensed clinician and is not qualified to diagnose or treat any medical or mental health conditions. Advice and guidance provided by LALC does not constitute a clinician/patient relationship and is not a substitute for one-on-one mental health or medical care for any condition or diagnosis. LALC is not a crisis intervention service. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.
*Get in touch if with me if boundaries are something you would like to work on. They are essential to community care work.
