You have to come from a place of concern, not judgment.
Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend has been going through a slow-moving train crash at work, a crisis drawn out over more than a year that has left her jittery, weepy, and on edge. It’s really hard to encapsulate just how awful this period of her life has been, but she has been working more than 100 hours per week for months, bursts into tears spontaneously, is clearly burned out, and just keeps grinding on to “save” her team (most of whom have already been fired), her projects (all but one has been shelved), and to try deliver on commitments she has made to customers and businesses she has partnered with. I have begged her to ease back and get some help, but she has shut me down completely and instead decided that what she really needed was “a new challenge,” which translates into a course and a literal team coding challenge event over several weeks, adding an extra 30 hours of course and teamwork to an already impossible week. I’m at my wit’s end: How do you persuade somebody who can never take their foot off the pedal to just stop the insanity? In full disclosure, I went through something similar more than a decade ago and it only ended with a suicide attempt that very nearly succeeded and for which she has never quite forgiven me. I am terrified and she keeps insisting, “I am not you, I do not JUST GIVE UP WHEN THINGS GET HARD!” It hurts.
—On the Edge
Re: You have to come from a place of concern, not judgment.
To me, that's past the point of no return.
K did something really similar to me and honestly, that was probably the point of no return. I spoke a bit about the heart wrenching journey with my community service. When I finally resigned all of the positions, I was very literally lost in my life; I had no idea what to do with myself or really who I was anymore, if I wasn't those leadership positions anymore. K was having some difficulty in roller derby. I hadn't offered up anyting other than a shoulder to cry on, when they bust out with, "I can't quit it, b/c I don't want to end up like you." I was just stunned and sat there. I basically ignored the red flag after that, but it sticks in my mind as the close to the beginning of the end.
Suicide and any attempts aren't anything to trivialize or call "quitting".
And thanks! I think it's a wound in the family that may always be open but perhaps not nearly as new? His son is about to be a dad and I think that's a ray of light.