Nobody Panic - How to Be More Supportive

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Being supportive isn’t as easy as it looks. Tessa sometimes gives too much tough love. Stevie presumes everyone has better friends and doesn’t need her support. This week they both explore various ways you can help your pals without barking at them like a sports coach.Produced and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. And welcome to Nobody Panic. Welcome.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. Do you need any support, Tessa? Oh, constantly. I can't help you now, but hopefully at the end of this episode, I will. Hooray! Yes. That's the episode's about how to be more supportive.

I just had to ask, I had to do a group search just now on what to make for dinner. Great. You supported me. Oh, my God, I did. Remember? That happened but seconds ago. So supporting can be as simple as just engaging in someone's the problem. That's exactly it.

Wow. Well, thanks for joining us. Goodbye. I took it down a different direction during my research. Absolutely. Go for it. So I'm going to be sort of interspersing today's tips with just some facts about how building supports their own weight. Okay. Thoughts?

Thoughts are very positive. Thank you. And I really support your choices. See, very clever because she couldn't say no. She couldn't say no. Well, I don't think you've done this week. Mine is that, oh, you're like this. Remember how nearly three years ago my laptop, the...

Number one, Q, A, Z and the delete button stop working. And you continue to write emails on it and just really struggle. Yes, so I got myself... Well, first you got you have a big, massive keyboard. No, that was actually second. First step was the first keyboard that looked noise. Like a nice little keyboard. The nice apples.

It would attach to your laptop. Not the Apple one, but the cheap knock off. Then I got water on that. Yes. So now, I had to use two keyboards at once. And one was absolutely massive, like one of those old keyboard. at school that you would be like... Those Dell processor and it was like two foot long.

It was like a... My backpack couldn't close so it was just out of the top of my backpack. She just walked around with a giant keyboard around. And once I got out of the back of a car with my laptop on and the keyboard caught and then I fell backwards back into the car. Yeah. And I thought abandon ship here. So then I got rid of the Dell keyboard and then I was just trying to do a work around. So the A was copied and pasted.

So I had to press the letter V for the A. Exhausting. Exhausting. Years this has been going on. It's absolutely. standing to watch you from afar. Yeah. Technologically, did not you do it.

Guess what I did? I don't know. Took it in? Got it fixed. No, you didn't. Yes. You've got a laptop? Yes.

It's actually there now. Oh my God. It's with him now. Christ. His name's Saeed. He lives at IT fix in the Kings Cross. I mean, don't give him his address. It was for custom.

I didn't even think I thought you were just going to give his home address out. I'm like, Tess, I don't docks the man. He's trying to help you. What does docks mean? That's when people give out people's contact details online or in a public forum. I'm to get them. DoX. Do X, X.

I've seen that and I thought it was a sex thing. Could be? Like a, no, no, an active sex. If you're having sex and then you shout out their address. To who? Do you just start recording a podcast. Yeah. That's my other podcast.

I'm having sex now. It's not gone as well. I've been doxed and you had sex with the boy who has a podcast and he started recording it. Dreadful business. Oh, that's great. Thank you for telling me what doxing is. No, it's called IT Fix.

Great. That's, I'm sure he would like the business. Yeah, I just walked in and I was like, please. please take this off me. Please, we've come too far. And he's like, did it happen this week? And I was like, oh, no. 2016.

No, it did not happen this week. It happened so long ago. Anyways, I feel so good by being like, for God's sake, just do it, just fix it. Now you're going to be a woman with, she's because Tess is currently using a fancy, like, iPad and a little keyboard that is supposed to be with it. Yeah, yeah, like flicks around, it stands up, it closes. And then you're going to be a woman. You can hear that everyone at home. He's going to be a technologically, I'd say quite sound woman.

Quite sound. That's what I'm going to say. They'd be like, wow. She looks it's quite technologically quite sound. Yeah, she looks pretty sound. Also, when he turned it on and I had to be like, oh, this is a special way to get in because all the buttons are broken. And then it was some of my Photoshop work. Right.

A little design of some peas. I'd been working on. But I said, imagine if it was porn. And he like did not think that was funny. No. And then he's seen a lot. He said, please, you have so many tabs. Like that.

And I was like, please. Please. I've never seen any Biddy with the amount of tabs open. It makes me incredibly sad and upset. Yeah, it makes me I really upset. You can only see the first letter of each tab. So I don't understand how you... If you think you've got a lot of tabs,

imagine if each of your tabs was now five tabs. Yeah. That's how close. And you're like, one letter per tab, surely not. Yes. Yeah, I imagine as well that if you have got too many tabs in Google Chrome, you will then just switch to as far and open some more tabs up. Oh, baby.

There's too many tabs here. Better move my search engine to somewhere, more clean. Oh, God. If I press the number three, a picture of an Amish horse comes up and no one knows why. Saeed will find out. Hopefully he'll tell me. I was like, I've got a command lock here for somehow on the number three. That's excellent.

Picture of the horse every time. Brilliant. What's your adult thing? Again, mine's more basic and more boring than anyone could ever imagine. And as we spoke about in, I think we did an assertive episode, didn't we, quite early on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About being assertive, and we were like, being assertive is telling people what to do and being like, no, pay me more. And it is, but it's also subtle earth than that.

Yes, it is. It's saying things like, I'd like this, actually, to go for dinner here. Oh, my God. I've made a choice. I've made a choice. Make her choice. Terrifying. By the way, if you're listening, that's the most quoted thing when people come up to us and go,

when we really like your podcast, they'd go, make a choice. and that terrifies me. Is that something we were chanting during the episode? We were like, make a choice, make a choice. And then at various gigs and things, people will chant Make a Choice out of me. Well, famously, we did that gig together, one after another, on the day of the football when we were in the semi-final. Yes. And people were watching the thing.

We went into extra time. And I was like, I literally cannot make a choice. I was like, should we just put the, I don't want to do this gig. Yeah, let's watch the football. And everyone's like going, make a choice. Yeah, it was like we'd create an army. It was horrendous. Yeah.

Please don't do that. It is so important. No, I say stick to it. It's so important to make a choice. So is. I'm not to be like, oh please, you just pick. No, no, no, no. I'll just go wherever you want to go.

Absolutely. No, fully agree. I'm on board. Make her choice. I think when there's like 60 people all chanting at you, it gets quite frightening. Yeah. But absolutely. I made a choice.

Well done. In a way. So my thing isn't not, isn't not knowing where to go for dinner. My thing is not wanting to have an opinion on something in case people think I'm stupid. So like if a film is out. Not one that's ever worried me ever. I know.

I'm aware. Tessa back to itself. I will say that. So if everyone's like, that film was awful, I'd be like, I just will not say anything if I liked it. And I was in a conversation recently. I went to go and see a film. I was in a conversation and everyone was like, oh, it was dreadful. I hate everything.

Do you want to tell us the film? Once upon a time in Hollywood. Oh, yes. Lots of think pieces on it. It's a while ago. I came to the party quite late. the party being the cinema, I watched the film quite late. Right.

All of the, I had to go back and find all the think pieces because I was like, I wanted to know what everyone was saying last week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was very hard, but I found lots of stuff about how some people thought it was misogynistic. Some people thought it was really boring. Some people thought lots of elements of it were wrong or maybe just one scene or so. And I was like, reading everything, being like, what do I think? Because sometimes when I see what I think, someone else said, I'm like, oh, it's that.

That's what I think. And I was like, you know what? I actually really liked it. I thought there was some problematic elements, but I think, quite. Quentin Tarantino is, at least he's saying what he's doing, having to go, he's doing some things, it's better than watching another very sanitised superhero movie, which I literally can't cope with anymore. Absolutely.

So foot fetish or nay. Lots of feet in it. I thought it was fine. The man's got a foot fetish. If he likes a foot, put the foot in. I think it's fine. It didn't bother me. I was just like, oh, another foot.

It's more like, well, where's the foot, you know? Oh, I see when there's not a fur. Every time, you watch a Tarantino movie, you're like waiting for the foot. Yeah. Well, they, he didn't disappoint. By the way, Quentin Tarantino has a foot fetish, and if you watch his movies, every single film has got a lady's barefoot in it. This had like men, women, all the feet.

Oh, great. Oh, he's really brushed out. I think, yeah. I think there's some man feet in it. Anyway, the point is, is that I was like, I like the film. And then everyone went, oh, okay. I was like, yeah, I thought it was good. I thought I really liked spending time in their world. I like those actors. I don't know what I like as people, but as actors, very good.

And I didn't like quite a few of his films, but I quite like this one. And everyone went, okay. No one went, oh, we'll have to kill you. For some reason, it's obviously how I'm acting. But crucially, nothing happened as a result. Nothing happened. And also, if the worst case scenario I think is that someone goes, oh, no, I didn't.

They're not saying like, and you're an idiot, you know? They're just going, oh, no, I didn't. Yeah, I've hated things and then someone's gone. Oh, so-and-so absolutely loved it. And I'd be like, what? But I wouldn't have to be like, oh, so-and-so's a moron. I'm probably watching. Yeah, you would.

Yeah, because I think that's what you said. But I wouldn't be a genuine feeling. I wouldn't, I would just be like, oh, let's talk about it. You wouldn't actually care and think about that person at all. Because you're just engaging in the art yourself. Yeah, exactly. We're all just here with our own flawed ideas. Oh my God, we absolutely are. And architects have to take it into account floors and buildings

because the horizontal forces that work against it as well as the vertical. Talking of support. Do you feel that you're a supportive friend? I hope so. Do you think I'm supportive? Yeah, I think so. Sometimes. Sometimes not, obviously. Well, as in like, I think everyone is supportive. with things that they feel that they can support.

And then if they're like, I don't know how to help or whatever, then it's easy to kind of not. So I think I wanted to do this episode because, especially because we work in such a creative industry, with people's any kind of creative dream, I will be arguably too supportive. Tough love. And I will encourage it too hard until you don't want to do it anymore.

And then get angry. I'll be at your stuff. I love to come and watch anybody do anything. Oh yeah, you're very, very supportive of that. That comes very easy to me. Hovering at the door, trying to get in quite late. Yeah, I'm coming in now. So that element of the support, and I would happily go and get anybody from the airport at any time of the night.

And you could sleep on my sofa for as long as you like. Those things to me come so easily. But I think the thing I find hard is like taking people's decisions and choices they've made, especially as we get older and people are making these like big life decisions. And me to be like, you are happy and I support that. I see in your face, yes. Because you want to be like, no! Don't go out with that, man.

It's bad. For example. Yes, you know, I can be very supportive in some areas and I suspect I'm extremely unsupportive in others and that I worried that people would increasingly sort of not tell me things. Because they don't want to be shouted out. Yes. Yeah, actually, I sort of back that. Yeah.

Sometimes I haven't wanted to tell you things. I'm like, I think Tessa won't like that. And then I'm worried that then we won't have anywhere to go because you'd be like, no. And I'll be like, I know. And then we'll just sit there in silence. I mean it. I can tell that's an aspect of my personality, and I would like to improve it, please. Excellent.

No, I was just saying, I think everybody, if you think about yourself as in terms of supportive, we'll have elements that you are better at than others. When someone needs help, I always presume they have a closer friend and they actually will just be getting in the way. Always. And I think I've started to be like, no, like, I don't have to be like, call them up or impose myself. I could just offer to go for a drink with them or I could offer, why don't I come around and make you some dinner? Whereas I'm constantly like, oh, I'll be a bother if I get involved,

which actually means that you're unsupportive. And it's come from a genuine place, which is like, oh, I don't want to be an issue here. It's not malice. It's not like, I don't care. Whereas I think, you know, the older we get and the more stuff people go through and people go through, you know, awful things. Yeah.

But it stops being like, oh, I didn't get a good exam result on my GCSEs. It starts being like, I've married the wrong man and I need to a divorce. You're like, wow, I don't know how to support that. Yeah. And so it's like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know what to say or I didn't know what do and I think it's like there's no right thing to say yeah so therefore anything is fine yeah there's no perfect thing to say that's going to fix this situation the situation is bad so you can say anything you like yeah showing up or just being present or and people will appreciate the fact that you've

offered some support even if that support didn't necessarily do anything for them positively it's not going to negatively impact their lives that someone reached out was like how are you doing yeah that's always no one's ever said how you're doing and I've gone oh fuck off like they're It's like, well, that's nice. Maybe I don't want to answer just then, but I will, and I like the fact that that person has reached out at all. To shout out to our great friend Freya of Lazy Susan in a fantastic sketch group called Lazy Susan,

who's short you can find on BBC iPlayer. It's really good. Oh my God, it's so good. But she, maybe last year, a good friend of mine, lost their dad after a long illness and they knew it was coming, and I said I didn't know if I should go to the funeral or what, And Freya was like, ah, that me absurd, just go. Like, of course, just go.

Just show up. And I just did. I just texted them and I said, hello, if it's okay with you, I'd love to come on Thursday. And then I just took myself off. And because I felt being like, oh, I don't, you know, I didn't know him at all. And I didn't want to have like, oh, is this wrong? Is this, you know, whatever?

Should I just stay out of the way? Like, but actually they were so appreciative, you know, of people of being there. And it made me be like, oh, I got to be better at just like not doing exactly what you're saying about being like, oh, they've got closer friends. they've got better people like I'll just be in the way just being like I'm here yeah I'm here I'm offering that support the absolutely worst case scenario is that you'd gone there and

they just got on with it like no one's gonna go I wish you'd leave yeah exactly it's not like you're the estranged lover or something and you've you know in which case do not do not I'd say there's certain things that yeah you can say you're being supportive but you're not you're just trying to have sex with somebody for example what's that no as in like so many of it's going from

a very real place. Oh, so many time friends have been desperately trying to tell me why it's a good idea. They go to see their ex-boyfriend because their ex-boyfriend's auntie has been taking it off. You're like, that is not why you're going to see your ex-boyfriend. I should text

him. No, I should. And you're like, why? Why would, he doesn't even know as an anti. That sort of thing. I don't mean no, I don't mean me. I've been in a very stable relationship for years. I was like, somebody's really trying to have sex with you, but I see. Well, that's always trying to That's constantly.

Everybody offering his support, but it's sex. It's always. So, yeah, do you have a little check-in with yourself and see, is it sex or is it support? That's the take-home. And if it's just support, then plow on. If it's sex, have a wink. Stevie. Yeah, go on.

Have a regroup is what I was going to say. Which could mean. It could mean have one can pop out. Have one can pop out. But if it's not a sex thing, I think it's clear to just be like, just plow on, you know? Yes. And don't be like, you know, you're saying, like, can I come around and make you dinner? Like, there's nobody in the world who wouldn't appreciate that. Because I think we see so many of the like adverts on the tube for as mental health becomes like so much more at the forefront. It's all like reach out. Like, ask for help. Like, you know, call the Samaritan. And it's like, and there is so many places to reach out. But if you're going through a tough time, it is so hard to reach out. It's almost possible. Those boards should say text someone. Yeah. Make sure your mate's okay. Yeah.

hello, are they all okay today? So like when you're listening to this, I would love if everybody just texted somebody, not that someone they text every day, but, you know, someone they were like, oh, yeah, I don't check in with that person enough. Yeah, even if it's just like someone started a new job or something. And you're like, oh, how's the new job going?

Yeah, just like do a little roller decks of all your friends and family in your head and be like, what are they going through? Has anyone got a new job? Has anyone just done a thing? Be like, hey, how did that thing go? And it makes so much of a difference when somebody that you weren't thinking about that day texts you to say, how did this go? And you're like, oh.

I've just got incredibly sad because I don't think, like, people do that with me. Like as in being like how did you think? Imagine it's something if you, I take to you how did your thing go? You do. You do actually. But that's what I mean like, I don't mean I'm sad because I don't have any friends. I mean I'm sad because that used to be a thing that you do all the time. You're checking in with your friends. Well, that's because you were in class together. You knew where they were because they just left how was science. So they exactly, you could constantly say how did it go in science because you sat beside them. You know, so it was easy to remember where everyone was and what everyone was doing and what they were going

through. You knew they were going for their driving test, whatever, because they made a song and dance about it all week. So then they came back in the room and you had to say, how did it go? Yes. So it was easier in the past and now we're so distant from each other that you have to make the effort to be like, is anyone taking a driving

test today? Yeah. Yeah. Who is driving? Who's driving? And who needs me to check in on them? If only we had, oh my God, I just thought of the worst idea in the world, and a huge shared calendar that everyone stops in. That's basically social media, isn't it? But that thing is like, it is that, but the calendar is too hard to use.

Yeah, exactly. You can't actually reach anyone's actual appointments. I'm obsessed with this AI I've invented. Oh, great. It's my conviction that everything in your house is just like, you know, like a lost jigsaw piece or whatever. Somebody in the world needs that jigsaw piece. Okay. But like there's no way they'd ever.

Know that it's in your kitchen? Yeah. Or that they would ever bother to like ask the internet. I see. This one jigsaw piece. But we could like fix so many things if everybody just knew all the things that everybody else needed. And what's the AI? element. The AI is some kind of

computer that just does that. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody just sorts it out. It's basically just like the internet, but it's more involved. You don't have to put the information in. Okay, great. Now that sounds sort of the internet of things. Yeah. Finding things. But also, you know, a little thing that popped up and said like,

so-and-so's thing was today. I mean, I think that's got a phone reminder. We can just put things in our calendars. Put things in your calendar. That's, we've gone full circle. Okay, great. Put things in your appointments calendar. So one's birthday. Because I had this awful thing where I was not on Facebook and then I just forgot everyone's birthdays. And it's like, probably to put them in your diary,

you lazy, so and so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of, like, actual practical things you can do when you are supporting people. Sometimes you don't want advice to fix the problem. And sometimes people don't understand that and you have to actually tell them, like, I don't want advice. And you as a person, I know that, but then that will stop me supporting people.

Because I'll be like, well, I don't know what to do or say. Tess is holding off her phone, which just says, be quiet and just listen. That is true. And sometimes when you are supporting someone, you do just have to be quiet and listen. And I found this like fun, fun, wasn't really fun, a chart that had things that you might want to say

and then things that you should replace it with. So you might, and I do this, when somebody tells me something that's happened to them, my first instinct is to, because I find it helpful, but not everyone does, is to find a parallel in my life. I'm like, oh my God, yeah, I know exactly what you mean,

this happened to me and this is how I dealt with it so is that helpful but that can often by jumping in and saying your own thing it removes the attention from them and it's time for you to be giving them attention and for them to feel like you are because the moment you go oh this happened to me then they might just subconsciously be like oh yeah of course I've been talking about myself far too much and you don't ever want someone to feel like that because people feel like that anyway so it's rather than saying things like um I know how you feel just being like God, that can be really hard. So if you want to interject, just interject with like supportive statements rather than taking it away.

And the other thing is to try not to use leading questions. Like, oh, and you must feel like this. Because then you get into a situation with, like, no, but I guess I do. So what are you supposed to say? How does that make you feel? Yeah, I mean, here it just says, I'm sorry. That's a bit much. What's that like for you?

What's that like for you? It's the other one. I mean, that's an odd one. Just going, I'm sorry, over and over again. And also if you want to say, oh, actually, I have an experience that was similar, you couldn't talk about that later, but when you go to sort of say that, rather than saying, what happened to me was this, you should say, that happened to me, but I want to know, how are you? Like, always bringing it back to them. And whenever they say, oh, I'm probably talking too much, like, no, I'm interested. I want to know. And when they deflect away, be like, let's bring that back. Come on. Stay with it. That was quite intense. Let's bring that back. You will want to say, oh, I found this helpful. Or I've been. heard, I've read this article about this or whatever, but actually only ever it says here give

advice if it's asked for. If they say, have you read anything or do you, this has ever happened to you? Like, let them fully dictate the conversation. And I think that might be helpful if you're saying as well, like if someone comes to you with advice and you want to be like, shut up, come on, so you can tell you about, you can actually, you can say all those things, but you can like wait and see what they want. Because if they literally end up being like, so I don't know, some tough love would be helpful. Then you can be like, oh, I got it. I am. Whereas if they're like, no one has ever, ever look in the eye and said some tough love would be helpful, which is a sign to me that that is not what people want. And I should stop giving it out. I think some people do. I think I definitely have benefited from you being like, no, you haven't. You don't have to pretend. No, I haven't benefited. You're not so deep in the Stockholm syndrome. No. But it's people need a kind of collage of different advice from different people before they feel like they have sorted a problem out, I suppose. You're never going to fully solve someone else's problem just you. No.

As famous magical golf caddy. A quote's coming. Bag of hands. In the legend of bag of vans. A lot of it. Again, that was, I just could not have guessed. That was what you were going to say. Played by Will Smith.

Yes. Played by everyone's favorite magical golf caddy, William Smith. He says, I cannot show you the answer. I can only help you find the way. Now, T.R. No, T-off. You can't be like, by the way, it's in the flower pot.

Yeah. It's the Wizard of Oz, you know? They're like, why don't you just say, click my heels at the beginning, you idiot? What are we doing here? It's like, you had to find it on your own. Like, seems pretty tedious. Yeah, but it turns out it wasn't about the clicking. It was never about the clicking.

They clicked the heels. Yes. It was never about that. It was about getting all the way through Oz. Yeah, it's about learning yourself. So when, it's like that classic thing of when you ask people for advice and they give you the answer that you don't want to hear you're like okay and you ask someone else until someone says yeah stay with him and then you're like yeah I'll stay with him like you just wait for the all everyone tells you one thing

and you end up just completely ignoring it and being like yeah but I was right so you need to come to the decision yourself on your own yeah but you're being not you specifically but we are all when we are being supportive we're helping and guiding that person yes we are being the golf caddy make a decision yeah all you have to do is just hold the bag and be there like yeah whenever you're supporting, whenever I'm supporting anyone now, I'm going to be thinking of the legend of backer fans. Yeah, it's like, you cannot hit that golf ball for them, no matter how good you are at golf. Or like, there's nothing you can do. All you can do is club, clubs, the sticks. The old golf sticks. Hold his golf sticks and just, and clap. That's literally all you can do. And it's so frustrating.

Hold the golf sticks and clap. And it's so frustrating because you might be incredible. Sorry, it's really got me. You might be amazing at golf. Yeah. And you're like, can on, I'll just do it. Yeah. And there's like, there's no point. Hold your arms, then we'll throw it for you. And they're like, it's not what we're here for. You just have to stand back and let them golf. And it is frustrating to watch someone to just really stretch this analogy out. Please.

Golf and they're terrible. Yeah. And you're an amazing caddy holding them sticks and clapping. Yeah. But they are not hitting anything. And they continue to for 18 holes. You're like, oh my God. But you can never show frustration.

No. Because you are the caddy. You can be like, perhaps a bit lower, sir. You can try your best to whisper. But in like a creepy voice as well. Yeah. And also in the be quiet and listen thing. when there are pauses in the conversation

that is that person gathering their thoughts and deciding what to do next you do have to fill the gaps you do not have to fill that gap as I did recently by saying have you seen the popular documentary Fire Festival

right yeah and alluding to this person's work crisis they were telling me about by a thing that was in Fire Festival which was not unhelpful but was not helpful the filling in the gaps when someone is

don't do it just sit and it's obviously difficult because you're like I'll fill over the other day you just want to say anything. You want to help so much. Yeah, and also don't be frustrated if between the two of you, you don't solve the issue. Because whenever anyone is giving me advice or being supportive to me, I feel a real pressure to be like, sort of like, you know, when we're doing this podcast and we'll

like do like a little roundup at the end, like, so this is what you should do. Do this, is this. Like, I always am like, yeah, I guess so that I'll do this and this and this to make the other person feel like that they've, yeah, yeah, I'm listening, I will try. But there often isn't to conclusion. Being supportive, I guess it's like an ongoing thing. It's all 18 holes of this shit. Let's hear from Cindy Sanson Braff, please.

Relationship Coach and psychic medium. Thank God. Thank God she's on the scene. Right. Author of why good people can't leave bad relationships. All the experts in this episode. Now I'm actually going to disagree with everything Cindy says here. Okay.

Because she says my husband has a wonderful way of comforting me when I start losing it. He says, he looks at me, smiles and says, I love you, and then asks, what can I do to help you? He sounds wonderful. Yeah, I'm glad you found him, Cindy. He sounds fantastic. So the I love you bit, I'm all down to clown. That sounds wonderful. But then the, what can I do to help you can sometimes be such an overwhelming question?

Yes. They're like, ah, I don't know. I don't know. It puts the owners on the person who is in pain or suffering. Please face this. And they'll probably be like, just give me space. Or, you know, they probably don't know what they answer is. Nothing.

I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. So what can I do to help you while it coming from a wonderful. wonderful place, thank you, Cindy's husband. So maybe it's something that you previously, if the person gets themselves freaked out about things or always gets worried about such and such a thing, and this can be your partner or just a friend

or a relative or whatever, having a conversation in a calm time where you say, hey, what do you need me to do when this happens? Yeah. What do you need from me? Say somebody gets very freaked out on the underground or traveling or at the airport will always freak out. What is it you need from that person in that? that situation so they're ready to be like i see yeah do i need distraction should you want distraction

do you want to just be ignored do you need to hold my hand and we don't talk about it like exactly which of this smorgas board of support tools yeah would you like to choose for the future in this crisis people often say like i'm here for you know anything just just give me a call and that's people still say that even though they know that no one's going to call anybody which shows how sort of empty that actually is yeah it's they mean at the time but then you know there are so many people who said that to me and then when I'm actually like having a problem it's like well I'm not going to obviously contact that person yeah I used to work with 10 years ago I haven't seen like why would I I don't what to say but if you you're trying to be supportive if you do anything to help so even if

you don't know what to do so say somebody's grieving or something and you don't know what to do and you've sent a message or whatever and you go okay well maybe I could just leave a little parcel of food or like leave a little like cook lasagna or something with them because they might be struggling to, I don't know, cook for themselves or maybe I'll transfer them some Uber eats vouchers. Lovely. That sounds lovely. Both those suggestions are great.

Doing anything just shows that you are there to do more specific things. Do you know what I mean? So like if you say like, I'm there, that's lovely, but that person won't necessarily be like, oh, I'll call Stevie. Oh, I'll call Tessa. Whereas if you've shown some sort of token that like I am there and I've also thought about it, you this much, then I think. I think the person will feel more able to open up to you and say, I need this specifically.

I'm talking about bigger things. I know that your point is true about just being there and asking the person like, what do you need? It's the same thing, like, because nobody in their right mind when someone said, if you need anything, let me know, which is obviously a wonderful thing that, and people mean it, but they don't know what that thing is. And nobody on the receiving end of that offer is going to be like, could I have a job? Some Uber Eats, vouchers. You know, like no one's ever, no one knows what they want.

They just need a golf caddy is what they're saying. So like the golf caddy doesn't say, I mean I'm not really sure I've never played a round of golf. I've never seen a golf caddy. But I think the golf caddy says, I think you want a club iron or a crowbar or a putting stick. I think the caddy suggests a good stick. I think. And a ball maybe? Yeah.

Did they suggest balls? They carry your stuff and they suggest, and they give you the right ball for the right hole. Whatever. So like even if that thing is wrong, even if you're like, can I get you? you, X, Y, Z, can I get you a drink? Can I bring some food around? In that, what can I do to help situation? When you say, like, do you want to be distracted? You can be like, no, but I do want this. Yes. Just saying, what do you need is too open ending a question. I say, yeah, yeah, of course, coming in with a specific. Yeah, even if that specific is wrong, at least now we've got something to

work from because we're like, oh, okay, it's not this. Yes, it's not this thing that we need. Yeah, and also being aware that your support might often be, go away for a bit. Sometimes you have to support people by backing off or by giving them space. And that can be very hard because you can be like, well, that's not, I'm not supporting. I'm not helping at all. You hate me. But you have to, I suppose, constantly be like, it's not about me. Like, it's about the other person.

Yeah. And that can be very hard too. So it's basically, yeah, like, I suppose what we're saying in as many different ways is you let the person lead obviously to a point. I'm very aware that within relationships, for example, you can be in situations. Like I've been in situations with past relationships where I've been in situations. incredibly supportive, but to a point where I'm actually just a dorm at, you know? Also, in relationships as well, when something has happened, rather than just like in general, like, in general, if you find yourself doing it's all the time, then obviously have like a look at it.

But I mean, yeah, when things have happened with friends or with partners or family members or something, that's kind of what we're focusing on, they lead what they need and you have to try and just be there. Not giving advice and not trying to dictate the conversation. No. It's really important. Yeah. A friend at the airport. recently when I had done all the booking for something, which is my nightmare. Yeah, wow. I hate it and I had done everything. Obviously, I was like in the check-in queue spiraling.

Oh, absolutely. Out of my sweet mind. God. Holding my passport open in case it wasn't my passport, you know, just like, and they, instead of being like, calm down or stop freaking out, they said, it's all right. If it's all wrong, we'll go to Walton Towers. And I was like, oh, pressure's off.

Pressure's off. We'll go to Walton Towers. And they were like, if anything, I'm better. Like, oh no. Is that what you want? But like, you know, just having somebody knowing exactly what I needed, which was to say, it's all right. Perspective.

Perspective. And saying it's all right is probably that is the way to be supportive. You just say it's all right. Or, yeah, isn't it rubbish? I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Isn't it? Let talk about it.

Just talk about it to me. Rather than being like, no, well, let's do this. Or why are you upset? Or don't question. it, just be in it and not saying like, you know, obviously, you know, oh don't cry. It's like, hey, cry. Let it out. Absolutely. Cry more.

Cry more, please. I'll cry. Should we both? Is that what you need from your caddy? Shall I cry? Bagamans just crying. Prying and the baguress. And I guess a slightly different type of support is the version of your friend who's made

terrible choices. Sure. And you're just like, uh-huh, uh-huh. And it gets to a point the older you get where like, if they're happy and they seem safe, Yeah. Yeah. If you can see further down the line, that is going to be a problem. Well, they've got to learn and swim themselves.

Yeah. They've made that choice. Yeah. And then ultimately, if you really do back yourself that this is a bad choice, kill them. I'm sorry. Be there when they need you. Yes, of course.

And it all comes crashing down and go, I told you. I told yourself. Yeah, a friend of a friend, inform me that she'd been married for a long time to somebody to prove a point. Because everybody, when she got married, had said, he's a piece of shit. And so she was like, you don't even know him. And then he's a piece of shit.

And then she was like, oh, fuck, he's a piece of shit. But then she couldn't get out of it because she thought everyone would be like, I told you so. That's terrifying. Which, like, ultimately they will be like, yeah, but we don't want you to stay with him. You know, we should be unhappy. Who are you doing this for? Yeah. We were telling you he's a dick because we wanted you to be happy.

Like, that's the only reason. We don't want you to stay in it to prove, like, you just want to swallow your pride and be like, guys, who's a piece of shit. I put my hands up, you know? And obviously, it's a tricky thing to do. As Cindy says, I mean, the book's called Why Good People Stay in Bad Relationships. Wow, okay. They're complex and tricky things. That wasn't from Cindy.

She did not stay with her piece of shit. No, she's got a wonderful man. He's got a wonderful man. A man. A nice man. A wee. A wee. What? The opposite of a piece of shit is a wee.

Yeah, could be. Sure. Good bit. Sure. Well, hopefully that helps. Yeah. I, for one, I'm really, really going to try. I completely forgot all my building facts.

I was so interested. Oh, my God. Tell us one. No, because I think they're sort of, they're sort of moot now. What is the thing about the horizontal forces? I've forgotten it. I won't tell you, I'll leave you with, when there are issues that occur due to precipitation or floods, that's called subsidence and can be an issue for building support.

Substances are the same which are softening the soil leads to a shift in the building's position. It is usually resolved by pumping concrete under the building. Oh. Pump concrete under your building. Others buildings. Others buildings. And your own. Whether they wanted it or not.

Get pumping. Get pumping, guys. That was helpful on an engineering level. Send a text right this second. How did that thing go? In fact, just say, how did that thing go to like 10 friends? And I guarantee one of them will be like, oh, thank you for asking. It went terribly.

Because they probably had a thing. Support is bag of answering. That is what a support is. Just do a bit of asking. You cannot golf for them. You can only hold the bags. Please do tweet us at Nobody PanicPod or email us, Nobody Panic Podcast at gmail.com.

And do spread the word of the Nobody Panic vibes if you liked it. if you don't, I don't know, don't say anything. So you can come and rate and reviewers and like and subscribe and all those things. We love all your, thank you for all your bag of ants, Inc. Bagavans, you've given us so many lovely stars on iTunes. Yeah, I feel very supported. There's so much concrete pumped under my building. There's so much.

There's so much. It's so solid. It's so solid. If anything too solid. I can build a basement in there. We back ourselves too much. Goodbye and see you next week. See you next week.

Okay, bye-bye.