What Do You Tell A Friend In Crisis

While I say in the videos that this video is for teens, it’s great advice or any age.

The video focuses on words to tell a friend but always know that you need to get police involved if someone tells you they are suicidal or are being raped. It’s important for you to ask for help. It’s more important to save a life than to lose a friendship.

Auto Generated Transcript

What do you tell somebody that has told you something horrible that’s happening to them or something horrible that they’re feeling? And I’m particularly addressing this to those in the age group of, say, 12 to 18. But it really applies to anyone. But when I say that age group, I mean that when we’re young, we typically have not yet found our voice.

And that means that if something bad happens to us, we don’t know how to express it. Or if someone has a question. And you know the answer. But you don’t know how to verbally express it in a way that they will hear it. That’s what I mean by not yet having found your voice.

So what do you tell somebody if they say that they’re being raped? What do you tell somebody if they tell you that, that they just wish they were dead? What do you tell somebody that that is telling you that they’re having nightmares every night of their life and they’re not sleeping and they just feel like they’re losing their mind?

These are real questions and these are real things that you’re up against probably every day in your schools. And I just wanted to give you a some phrases. You can memorize them. You can make them your own. But it I hope that it gives you the the capacity and the ability to have a response, because a lot of times we’re just silent and they think that we don’t care because we’re silent.

And it’s not that we don’t care. It’s that we’re trying to formulate how to help them. So if someone were to come to you and say one of those things and appropriate would response would be, I’m so sorry that’s happening to you. An appropriate response would be to say, Do you want to talk about it?

Or perhaps an especially if they’re hurting themselves or someone’s hurting them, you would say something like, that breaks my heart or I’m so sorry that’s happening to you. I don’t know what to tell you to do. I don’t know how to tell you to fix it. But would you like me to go with you to talk to someone?

Would you like me to go with you? To talk to an adult?

Are you safe?

Are you safe is an important question, because if they’re being molested or raped, they’re probably being emotionally coerced and, of course, physically coerced to not ask for help. It’s very likely that they have a younger sibling or a parent, a mom that’s being threatened, that the perpetrator is saying, I’ll kill them, If you tell.

That’s almost always a lie. If that person had the courage to do something like that, they would have already done it.

They are simply saying that to manipulate, control and dominate. And if you report the problem to the authorities,

something has to change. Now, is it always good? No, it’s not always good. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s always good.

Does every adult know how to respond?

No. No. They don’t always know how to respond. So you go find another adult. If one adult refuses to help you and you’re asking for help. Don’t give up.

Go find somebody else.

If you ever know somebody that’s going to run away, please don’t let them run away to the streets.

Don’t you run away to the streets. A child that is on the streets, 72 hours statistically will be picked up by a pimp. At that point, they will be picked up by a sex trafficker because at 72 hours you haven’t had a consistent meal and you are truly hungry, like starving, hungry, and you will do anything. So anyone, even if you can tell by looking at them and know that they’re dangerous and they offer you a meal or a place to sleep at 72 hours, that’s looking really good.

So don’t run away. Don’t run away without a plan. There are safe homes, there are resources. And if you’re in a community where your resources are not safe, then you go find another community. You go to the library and get online and you find resources.

You could try the National Runaway Hotline or the national sex trafficking hotline. If your parents are sex trafficking you for rent for few for food or simply sexually abusing, which is not simple. I don’t mean it that way. But if they’re sexually abusing you, call the sex trafficking hotline and the number will appear here on the screen. You don’t need to live that way.

I know there’s reasons that people stay. Usually younger siblings or usually emotional abuse and coercion. If you are a child, it is not your job to protect your mother. It is her job to protect you. And there are resources for her. There are shelters she can go to get away from an abusive relationship.

If you are a child, you do not have the ability to save her.

It is not your job. Other people with experience and resources can help you. I can’t promise you that every foster home is safe. But if it’s not, you make the phone call and you get out of that situation.

If you’ve been in an abusive family, you’re probably not going to like foster care. If you’ve been in a situation where you’ve never had boundaries or rules and you fend for yourself your entire life, you’re not going to like going into a home that has a bedtime, a curfew, no phone rules, phone screen time rules. But it’s better.

It’s better to have a family that will protect you and fight for you.

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Likewise. If you’re the friend and you found out in class that that so-and-so’s being molested or raped, tell somebody.

If you don’t feel comfortable telling a teacher or a principal or social services, write an anonymous letter.

It’d be most powerful if you can convince your friend to go with you and for them to ask for help. But even if they don’t. The best way you can be a friend is to let somebody know what’s happening to them. It may cost you their friendship, but it’s what true friendship is.

You might even save a life.

Think about it.