When "Help" Hurts: Understanding Emotional Pain

Image: Representational — Emotional vulnerability and misunderstood support

It’s heartbreaking to see how a person already in deep emotional or psychological pain can be made to suffer more — not necessarily through intentional cruelty, but through misguided “help.” When someone is broken inside, even a simple suggestion like "take a walk" can become a mountain of guilt, self-doubt, and internal turmoil. The inner voice doesn’t hear “help”; it hears “you failed again.”

First, the person is already destroyed and is suffering. On top of it, everyone around feels they know better than the one who is suffering and starts suggesting solutions after listening to some extent — which is natural.

No one realizes that all a person who is suffering requires is time to heal and being supportive.

Since the person is already hurt, whatever people around say would often be used negatively by the brain to harm themselves.

For instance, a suggestion could be as little as: "Go take a walk. You will feel better."

The person could start thinking the following: "I want to take a walk, but I am too tired to walk now..." Tries really hard to do it, but fails... For outsiders, it seems like just a walk.

As people say, "It’s just a walk, don’t beat yourself."

The person affected would think: "If it's just a walk, why wasn't I able to take a walk?"

And would start assessing self-worth based on the walk.

This thought process will continue — while people think they are actually helping the person who is suffering.

But the more and more people do it, the more and more they push a person to the extreme...

If that person being affected has strong ethical values — they are tied down to not hurt others.

If the process occurs on a daily basis, and the person is being hurt daily by the same people, it will only worsen the patient's condition.

The psychiatrists can only treat the symptoms. The actual problem is in the patient's brain — which only the person going through it knows, and most of the time, it is too difficult for the patient to express.

If the patient gathers all the courage left in them — and that too, in front of the doctor — and the doctor says, "That is such a small thing, why are you making it a big issue?"

and calls the patient, "You are having manic symptoms." Can you imagine the willpower of a person being destroyed by the same doctor who has treated the patient before?

Thank you — SaiRiyaTales