Dear Prudence,
I care deeply about my friends and family, and I love them. But depression is on the rise, especially since it runs in my family and a lot of my friend group is LGBTQIA+, which makes them all more likely to develop depression. I’m the designated gay cousin who beat depression without therapy or support, and they always look to me as “the strong one,” “the one who beat depression and is therefore the Supreme Depression Authority,” “the Yoda of Gay,” and although I love to help, it’s a lot. I’ve done crisis counseling late at night for hours, getting no sleep so I can make sure my friends and family are OK.
Of course, I’m glad they feel they can trust me, but I’m an unqualified 17-year-old. I’ve done minimal crisis support training, I’m not qualified to help with gender identity or sexual orientation, and although I do the best I can, I’m human! I can’t give six people suicide prevention support. I don’t want them to feel abandoned, but I can’t keep talking to people until 3 a.m. to keep them from dying and then go to work the next day and then come back home to a missed call about my cousin struggling with his labels. I know what it’s like to go through all that with no support, and I never want my friends to feel that way, but I don’t have the capacity for this. What should I do? I want to keep them safe, but I’m not a machine.
—Human Not Hotline