How would you face and handle life’s ups and downs without close friends or family to rely on?

4 comments

1. I simply wouldn’t be able to. I may not have a huge social network, but I can’t even fathom a life having no one.

2. I don’t keep close friends, and I’ve never had a support network as I’ve never been “able” to ask for help or to open up emotionally, so I’ve just learnt with the years to be independent. I stay proactive and solution-oriented, and don’t let my emotions overtake my rationality. It definitely doesn’t mean that I never struggle or get emotional, but more that I can trust myself with knowing that no matter how bad shit gets, I’ll always eventually manage it.

   Generally, even if one isn’t as closed-off as I am, I just think it’s healthy to take baby steps towards being comfortable with independence. Start with a small “project”, learn to trust and build confidence in your own drive and support. If you’ve done it once, there’s no reason to believe you won’t be able to do it again. If you’ve “failed”, you can still learn from that experience what worked for you and what didn’t, so you’re better prepared the next time.

3. Therapy. A therapist is paid reliability. As necessary as rent and food for me!

4. I like being independent. I build in contingencies so I have less exposure to risky or non-ideal situations. This applies to my finances, transport, personal safety, career, health, goals and living situation. It can be a lot of planning but I like the level of certainty and stability it brings.

   But ultimately, going through life completely on your own without close friends or family to rely upon is a difficult way to live. Hyper-independence is maladaptive. So I also practice relying on close family and friends for situations that are not life-or-death to me. It gives me confidence and a sense of safety to know that there are people that can help me. It’s not that I burden them with my needs, but that I know I can handle the situation even if they don’t help me.

   This serves two purposes:

   1. I learn what things I can ask for from which close family or friends where I get a 90% satisfactory response or action from their end. I also learn what asks to steer clear from for certain friends/family. For example, there’s a sister that I’ve learned I like asking for financial advice from, but not from my other family members.
   2. I learn that it’s okay to ask for help, and that I can change the way I ask for things so that people are more likely to want to help me, or that I get what I actually need. I don’t see it as manipulation–I don’t ask for unreasonable things–but as a recovering socially-awkward person, I found that my default is to ask in ways that don’t actually get what I need. So I’m adjusting and I’m getting better responses.

   For example, in my late 20s I started opening up to my mother to try to get emotional support from her–what I was looking for was the “it’s okay, you’ll make it through, I trust you, I believe in you” type of responses. But instead she’d shut down or give me unsatisfactory remarks and platitudes, because my mum isn’t someone who openly talks about emotions. So now instead I ask about situations she’s been in that are similar to what I’m going through (without telling her what I’m going through), and she usually ends up giving me useful perspective, and seeing her belief in her abilities makes me trust my own instincts to do the right thing; if I’m her daughter, I can do it too. And I find my openly-talking emotional support from other people.

   Edit: I should’ve prefaced this with: I didn’t have truly close friends or family (I had family, but we weren’t that close) up until my late 20s / early 30s. I built relationships when I realised being hyper-independent wasn’t working for me.