In the days following the passing of fashion designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain the “check on your strong friends” posts have resurfaced across social media platforms. While the intentions of these posts are meant for good, I don’t agree with the concept of having “strong friends”. It’s amazing to me how we’re suddenly so laser-focused on checking on our strong friends, but I can guarantee most don’t ever take the time to check on their weak friends either.
From what I gather, the strong friend is the person that serves as a listening ear but rarely discloses their personal battles. The strong friend also seems to handle tough situations without batting an eye. Truth is, we’re all strong in someone’s eyes, but none of us are as strong as we appear.
It’s easy to say you never know what someone else is going through, but how often do you stop and actively listen to someone else’s story and not judge them for it? We talk about the importance of self-care and mental health, but we want people to suck it up and deal at the same time. We’re quick to label someone as depressed (a word we use too freely) for going through a rough patch. We’re even quicker to call someone ungrateful for even mentioning a slight blemish in their seemingly picture-perfect lifestyle. When someone opens up to us, do we validate their feelings or dismiss them? We glorify being strong and then we are confused when people aren’t willing to openly talk about their struggles.
The adjectives strong and weak should be used to describe an acid or an odor, not a person’s level of comfortability with sharing their true feelings or the frequency at which they do so. It’s not up to us to determine which of our friends are strong and which of our friends are not. It’s not for us to sort out the real problems vs the not so real problems. It’s not for us to criticize someone for how much they cry or don’t cry. It’s not our place to force someone to share their truth. It’s not about living up to society’s definition of what it means to be strong, it’s about having the ability to get through whatever life throws at us. At times, we need someone to help us move from one point to the next and at times we need to help someone else.
SideNote: If you always feel like you’re obligated to be the strong friend, you may need to reevaluate your friendships.
Don’t just check on your strong friend, check on your friend who is visibly struggling. Check on your married friend. Check on your divorced friend. Check on your single friend. Check on your friend who moved to a new city. Check on your friend who posts everything for the world to see. Check on your friend who only likes everyone else’s posts. Check on your friend who just lost a loved one. Check on your friend who lost a loved one a few months ago. Check on your friend who is a business owner. Check on your friend who started a new job. Check on your friend in school. Check on your friends that have children. Check on your friends regularly.
So, NO, I won’t be checking on my strong friends. I’m choosing to genuinely and actively be there for my friends because simply checking on them whenever the wind blows isn’t always enough.
-Kymmie
PS: Make sure you check on yourself too!
You are an amazing friend.