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What is a friend (and how does that differ from a close friend)? Frankly, I don’t even talk about mental health with my wife, and I would say she is my best fr
by irrational 3y ago
What is a friend (and how does that differ from a close friend)?
Frankly, I don’t even talk about mental health with my wife, and I would say she is my best friend. I imagine this is cultural, but I’m not sure what that means. It’s not like anyone ever said to me, hey, never talk to your friend in private about mental health. And that isn’t something I’d expect people to talk about in public with each other where I could learn from observation. In other words, it doesn’t feel like something that is learned from explicit teaching or from observation. So, where is it learned from?
- StephenAshmore 3y agoI think learning from omission is a real thing. If you never observed anyone doing it, then why would you? When I was growing up, no one ever talked about mental health or therapy, so I didn't even realize it was an option until college when I met others raised in a different culture.
- irrational 3y agoBut, where would you observe it? It isn't the kind of thing people talk about in public, usually. I know my wife and her friends discuss mental health issues, but they have never done so in front of me. Those discussions only happen in private. The only thing I can figure is that as teenagers girls discuss mental health issues and they learned it from slightly older teenage girls who themselves learned it from their own slightly older teenage girls when they were younger.
- jrgoff 3y agoYeah, I grew up where it was not common to talk about either. I think I mostly picked it up from significant others, and from joining a community for awhile where it was much more common to talk about those sorts of things. I'm glad that I did!