How to Help Those Who Refuse Help

Leaving a Light On for Those Who Are Lost

Brandon Tumblin
6 min readFeb 20, 2023
Photo by Quaid Lagan on Unsplash

I think that one of the hardest things to watch in life is to see someone whom you deeply care about be negligent in helping themselves, in showing up for themselves. The classic example is the parents who have a kid that becomes addicted to drugs. They waste all of their money on it, they never come home and when they do they’re a ghost.

In Unconditional Love Real?

In many cases, the parents will let that relationship destroy them. That’s the thing about unconditional love that parents have for their kids; it’s irrational. Sometimes, that irrationality is a good thing for the kid. For example, if a mother sees a bear approaching their kid, most would run at the bear, scare him off, or try and fight them if needed. That’s entirely irrational if the mother could have gotten away.

Parental Love

But most mothers and fathers would fight tooth and nail to protect their kids, even die for them. Likewise, most parents would allow the toxic relationship with their kids to ruin their life. Imagine if you knew someone at work that started having a drug problem. Hopefully, you’d try and help them, but when push came to shove, you’d probably not jeopardize your own life for them. Many parents…

--

--