What was our design/plan for the workshop?
We began the workshop by explaining the significance of opening up regarding having a close loved one who is struggling heavily because it can have an effect mentally on the supporter as well as the struggler. After doing so, we encouraged the students to free write about a specific example in their own lives currently or in the past when they had been put in a tough situation like this and the type of effect it had on them. We challenged the students to ponder on tough questions including whether they felt that they were able to take care of themselves during the period or if they felt their own mental health getting worse as a result of providing immense support. We urged the students to try and create a balance between bringing aid to loved ones and also doing things to preserve their own mental health such as setting boundaries with the person they are helping, setting aside times dedicated to taking care of themselves and doing things that bring them peace, or having a neutral person they could open up to about everything. We urged students to share what they had come up with the entire class because something that might help one person could help spark an idea with another about the best way to cope during a situation like this.
The video that was created to lead the A Loved One in Despair workshop is linked below and a translation of it is provided underneath:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1O6dKR53othITYCUouEI3HRDs6PqZAIvV?usp=share_link
Translation of the video:
Hello everybody. This is our second workshop. Its name is “a loved one in despair.” Its meaning is that sometimes in our lives, there can come a time when someone close to us can really be struggling. For example, one of your friends might be fighting a lot with their family and for that reason, they may be feeling really sad. Or someone from your own family might be ill and because of that you might be feeling really sad and your behavior might change a little because you are thinking about that in your head all the time. Both of these things and many others regarding this topic can cause us hardship. This is because it is hard to watch someone else’s pain when we are so close to them. And we would be feeling worried about whether the person close to us is ok or not. With your friend, you can at least talk about his troubles but if someone is sick, you might feel even more helpless. And you can even end up in a situation where your friend might end up coming to you a lot to talk about his problems and after a while, it can start to affect you too. Therefore, it is so important that we talk about this and that we don’t keep whatever we are thinking inside our heads. And it is also important to have boundaries with that person. I know that this topic can be sensitive for some children, so if anyone wants to take a break from this workshop at any point, then go ahead and take one.
Now we will start to write. First, think: is there someone that is close to you that is going through a hard time right now? If you can’t think of anyone currently going through hardship, was there a time before when someone was going through a lot of problems which led you to be more concerned about them? Write about that for 10 minutes. And think about whether you took care of yourself while you worried about that person. Did you give time to yourself to process all of this? Or did you just spend all your time helping the person out? It is a very noble deed when we help someone else out. But losing ourselves while doing so is not right. Did you have someone you could go to to talk through all of this with? Think through all these questions and anything else on your mind too and write about it. If anyone in the classroom wants to talk amongst themselves about what they wrote then pause the video after writing and talk about it. If not, we will move forward with the next part.
Now we will think about how we can balance helping someone else and taking care of our own self. My hope is that after this workshop you will have a better idea of how to not drown mentally while being an aid to someone else. Now we will think about which things we can do for ourself during this time. First I will talk about my current situation and what I do to regulate it. I have a friend right now who is feeling very sad. She is sad because all of her friends used to talk to her very badly and so for her own self respect, she said something about this to them and they didn’t like it so her friendship with that entire group broke off. She called me crying about this and I also felt very sad about why this was happening to her. And I began to think about it very deeply. The problem was that I had a very big exam coming up and I wasn’t thinking about studying because I was spending a lot of hours on the phone with her to help her feel a little bit better. But then I saw that it was having a slightly bad effect on me because I wasn’t doing my work. So, I talked to my friend. I told her that I really wanted to help her but that I also needed to take care of myself. She understood and she would still call me but not as much as before. In this way, I was able to help her out and also study by creating and maintaining a boundary with her. Now you guys think about how you can make your particular situations better. It is possible that you don’t get affected by talking about these things a lot but you need time to yourself to do things you like. Think about what YOU need to preserve your mental health in your current or previous situations. Write about this for 10 minutes and then get together to talk with everybody about different things that you thought of. Whatever you have thought of for yourself has the potential to help someone else out too.
This workshop is now finished. My hope is that you will take care of and help whoever is close to you as well as take care of your own mental health. It is very important for you to be able to talk to someone about this and not keep whatever is going on in your head while also being able to do things for yourself that bring you peace. My hope is that you learn more from this workshop on how to keep your mind clean and how to never give up hope when someone close to you has problems and it is also affecting you. Thank you for participating and I’ll see you guys next time!
Ms. Sejal Patel agreed to take photos of the workshop while it was in progress and they are displayed below in a slideshow.
The first picture within the slideshow shows the video I created for the workshop playing on the TV in the classroom. The children are eagerly listening and following along with the writing prompts I have created for them.