The best thing you can do for your friend when they're suffering from anxiety is to patiently wait with them. Pray for them (1 Thessalonians 5:14-17). Don't try to fix things and, unless asked, don't offer solutions to "make everything better"—especially their raging emotions. Work at keeping communication open, reserving judgment, and exercising compassion. Make yourself a safe space. Your friend is so much more than their anxiety. They are a creation of God, whom He loves wholeheartedly, and who has been put into your life for a reason.
How can I be a good friend to someone who has anxiety? This is such a beautiful question. And the answer is both extremely simple and infinitely complex.
Short Answer: Simply love your friend.
Your relationship with a friend who suffers from anxiety may be just like any other on most days. But when their anxiety flares, realize that how your friend needs to experience love may be different than you think. It'll likely be different than what you yourself would want or need. During a period of extreme anxiety, the biggest help you can give your friend is to listen to what they're saying. Discover what they need from you in that moment.
From my experience, for most people, their needs can be boiled down to three things: patience, presence, and communication.
If you have never struggled with anxiety or depression, one of the hardest things to understand is that anxiety can be utterly crippling. Debilitating anxiety can make it hard to think, process feelings logically, and sometimes, even cause physical impairments, like making it hard to breathe.
A person struggling with anxiety isn't necessarily ignoring their self-worth. They aren't disregarding the real truths they know and recognize on any other day. They aren't trying to avoid trusting in God. Rather, they're caught up in the grip of something they literally cannot control. For many of them, this is as real as an asthma attack, a sugar crash, or a serious migraine. They can't prevent the panic attacks from coming on or stop the emotions and worries racing through them—any more than you could control a heart attack.
Our gut instincts may be to try to FIX what we perceive to be the problems and stop the anxious thoughts, but I urge you to resist that gut reaction. Trying to "fix" someone's mental health fails for two reasons:
He is a cross pendant.
He is engraved with a unique Number.
He will mail it out from Jerusalem.
He will be sent to your Side.
Emmanuel
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