When Emotional Support is Needed for Family

By Sierra Powell

Feeling periodic stress is a normal part of life. It is common for people to experience extreme stress in the prelude to or aftermath of a crisis. Most symptoms of stress are temporary and will resolve relatively quickly. For some people, the symptoms can last for weeks or months and impact their relationships with friends and family. It is helpful to identify when emotional support is needed.

Warning Signs of Emotional Stress

If an individual has lived through a natural disaster or a disaster caused by humans, the anniversary of that event might make them feel sad, anxious, or fearful. Some signs of emotional distress include:
● Over or under eating
● Distancing oneself from people and things
● Lowered energy levels
● Unexplained pain, especially in the stomach or head
● A feeling of despair and hopelessness
● Excessive use of mind-altering substances, including alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes
● Worrying all the time
● A constant sense of guilt without knowing why
● Thoughts of self-harm or suicide
● Difficulty adjusting to home, school, or work-life
Sensations like sounds and smells may trigger emotional distress. When a family member is forced to respond to these triggers, their thoughts may take them back to the moment when the event happened. Trigger events can happen with little warning.

Helping Teenagers and Children

If you are worried about children or teenagers in your family who you feel need emotional support, there are some particular signs you should look out for.

Children are vulnerable. Traumatic events can scar them. Even toddlers are affected by events that they feel make them unsafe or threatened. They are also emotionally affected by events that happen to the people they love, like siblings or parents.

Children lack of coping mechanisms to understand natural disasters and other emergencies that can impact their lives. Turmoil may mean that children are ripped away from their parents with little to no information about what is going on. Warning signs that children are dealing with emotional distress include:
● Shying away from friends
● Trying to get excessive attention from parents and teachers
● Fear of leaving the home
● Loss of interest in school work
● Unexplained aggressiveness
● Increased conflicts with friends and parents
● Difficulty concentrating
Symptoms for teenagers are similar. Teenagers who need emotional support may become withdrawn, rebellious, and engage in questionable or high-risk activities.

Time Helps

If a young person has experienced trauma, they may need time to understand what happened to them and to recover from their distress. Children, especially smaller children, take a lot of clues from their parents. They turn to their parents for help and assistance. They look up to teachers and mentors as a source of solidity as they are undergoing dramatic changes.

Helping Adults

It is not just children who feel distressed after emotionally trying or physically difficult circumstances. Adults also need help to deal with emotionally trying situations.
Some adults are in damaging relationships. They struggle to speak with each other and treat each other with kindness and dignity.

Adults may have a hard time turning to someone for help with their emotional trials. They may know that a relationship counseling professional could help them minimize disagreements, improve communication, and address issues with intimacy and faithfulness. Search for a quality counselor in your area, for instance, someone who does relationship counselling in Canada if you live in Canada.

They may readily understand that past issues and resentment are making it difficult for them to see their partner in a positive light or actively listen to anything a partner says. But it is hard to get the emotional support needed in order to heal as a couple.

Many adults feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the responsibilities they have. Loss of employment, changes in health, caring for children, and other things associated with being an adult can feel overwhelming.

Because of the stresses, they may not take the time to address their physical and emotional needs. Warning signs that adults are in emotional distress include:
● Fatigue
● Excessive guilt, hopelessness, and helplessness
● Loss of interest in daily activities
● Avoiding friends and family
● Difficulty sleeping or sleeping all the time
Disasters, whether they are physical or emotional, can take their toll on adults who seem to be extremely strong.

Conclusion

It is important for everyone in the family to be aware of what is going on with fellow family members. It is easy to overlook or ignore the signs of emotional distress. However, if you are paying attention, you may help a family member when they need you the most for emotional support.

Author Bio

Sierra Powell is a freelance content writer who graduated from the University of Oaklahoma with a major in Mass Communications and a minor in Writing. When she’s not writing, she loves to cook, sew, and go hiking with her dogs

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect all or some of our beliefs and policy.  Any links on this page do not necessarily mean they have been endorsed by Defying Mental Illness.

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