Building Your Team

(Adapted from Sue Atkinson’s book Climbing out of Depression)

Now consider 3-4 people who you can add to your team to support your through the changes. These are people whom you could phone up, see regularly, chat through problems or bounce ideas off.

A word of caution: Talking to too many people can end up being superficial, so you need to find a few deep people to trust. In fact, asking them may deepen your friendship. Secondly, we will need to accept and trust these friends, but they might not have all the answers, so give them slack and don’t accept EVERYTHING.

Thirdly, people may try to help you and then you get unhelpful responses like:

  • “Pull your socks up”. They may be sympathetic at first but then launch into a ‘pull yourself together’ / ‘cheer up’ comment. Walk away from someone who says “well, I’ve never had this problem, so why should you?”, or “you’ve got it bad? Well, I’m far worse off”
  • If you have someone who has already been on a similar journey-  then get them to tell you what they did to resolve it, and only grab the useful stuff

List out your Team

Name Have you told them of your needs and how they can support you? Have you called out for support?
1    
2    
3    
4    
5    

When you think about giving or getting support, consider the word ‘CARE’

  For Others For Yourself
Concern keep Calm
Acceptance Accept your own limitations
Respect Reach out for help
Empathy Educate yourself on your weaknesses & behaviours