What 'You Are Not Alone' Really Means

Whenever I opened up to someone I was usually met with the same three words; “You are not alone”. This was meant to be reassuring, it was supposed to be comforting, but it just angered and hurt me further. In the beginning, it may have been somewhat reassuring because I was just thankful that my vulnerability was appearing to be met with compassion and genuine concern. But sadly, sympathising with somebody who is suffering isn’t enough. Even caring about someone isn’t enough because depression can blur your perception of love and anxiety can disguise acts of kindness as acts of sarcasm and humiliation. You can’t love the mental illness out of someone.  

The truth is, I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew that people were there for me but I was convinced that those people either didn’t really understand, didn’t really care, or simply couldn’t help. I knew that other people had already gone through something similar to what I was going through but in a way, I thought that I was the exception. I believed that other people could recover but that for some reason I couldn’t. When other people opened up to me I told them that they were strong and that they could get through it and I truly believed that, but I never believed it about myself.

So, when people told me that I wasn’t alone it would make me angry because it hurt me to think that I may have been taking all of the people that loved me and all of the resources around me for granted, even though I thought I was too far gone for them to help. It hurt me to think that I had all of these people rooting for a lost cause. 

When people said, ‘You are not alone’ I didn’t find it comforting because a part of me wanted to be left alone, considering other people’s abandonment to be an excuse for leaving. If everyone abandoned me, then if I killed myself I wouldn’t be the girl who put her family and friends through so much pain, I would be the girl who didn’t think she had a choice. And that was what I thought. Depression makes you think that you don’t have an alternative but hearing people say that those who commit suicide are selfish and weak didn’t make me feel any less suicidal, it just made me feel like I had no one to turn to. It just made me feel more alone.

But I was wrong. I had completely misunderstood what this phrase meant. It doesn’t mean that there will always be people around you because when somebody says that they are ‘always there for you’, that’s kind of an impossible promise. Everyone has their own responsibilities and it doesn’t mean that they are more important than you but it does mean that they may have to turn off their phone sometimes and so they may not always be able to know when you need them, or they may not always have the resources to properly help you on their own. We are all human.

When someone says, ‘I am always here for you’, it means that they always care, even if they can’t be there to show it. When someone says, ‘You are not alone’, it means that even if they can’t be with you physically, you will always have someone who wants you to be happy, healthy, and alive.

And it doesn’t mean that other people know what you are going through because nobody does. Each experience of anything is unique, especially something as complex as mental illness. But just because your experience is unique, this doesn’t mean that others haven’t felt similar feelings and thought similar thoughts – no matter how dark or strange you may think they are.

It means that there is always someone willing to try and understand you and it means that there is always someone willing to try and help you understand yourself. This doesn’t mean that everyone truly understands or that everyone who does care will know how to show this in the right way. It doesn’t mean that there will always be people who know what the right thing to do or say is but there will always be people who care enough to try.

Reaching out for help can be extremely difficult and terrifying and it doesn’t always go to plan. Some people just cannot fathom what you’re going through and some people are so scared of saying the wrong thing that they say nothing. So as a community we have adopted these reflex phrases like ‘you are not alone’ and ‘I’m always here for you’ and I hope no one overthinks them as much as I did because I’ve only recently realised that these show that they care about you and want to help even if they don’t know how. They are not saying that they understand what you are going through. They are not trying to imply that you shouldn’t feel the way you do because people care about you. And they are not making the impossible promise to be there for you 24/7. They are reminding you that they care about you, even if this isn’t enough to make you better and they are reminding you that getting better is a possibility and that they will try to help you when they can.

Everyone has their own problems and just because someone cannot be there for you 24/7 (no one could), that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about you.

You are not alone because there is always someone who understands what you are feeling in part, even though every experience is unique.

You are not alone because there is always someone who cares about whether you are happy or miserable, alive, or dead.

It may not seem like it but that may be because they aren’t aware of your suffering or because you just haven’t found the right people yet but there is always someone who cares, even if you can’t see who or why. Trust me, I care.

“I think this is what we all want to hear: that we are not alone in hitting the bottom, and that it is possible to come out of that place courageous, beautiful, and strong.”
― Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith

If you liked this post you may also like my post Living VS Surviving.

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