How to Be the Friend You’d Want in a Crisis

This past week, after sharing my thoughts on how we show up for each other in times of need, I was so grateful to hear from so many of you.

I spent a lot of time reading your messages. You told me about losing people you loved and feeling the silence that followed. You told me about health scares, moments where your life shifted, and the people you assumed would be there simply… weren’t. You shared stories about some of the most vulnerable periods of your life, and what stood out most wasn’t just what you went through, but how alone you felt in it.

It was deeply moving to read. And, if I’m being honest, it was also sobering. Because this wasn’t a handful of isolated experiences. There was a pattern running through so many of your stories.

What I kept seeing, over and over again, was this: people might care, but they don’t show up. The care isn’t felt.  It feels like absence. It feels like abandonment. I think this is one of the more devastating ways loneliness is being created right now, not just from a lack of relationships, but from a reluctance of people who step forward when it actually matters.

After sitting with all of this, I kept coming back to the same thought: we’re not going to solve this by waiting for everyone else to suddenly get better at it. Culture doesn’t shift that way. It shifts when individuals decide to do something different.

Which means, in many ways, the only real option we have is this:

To become the kind of person we wish had shown up for us.

That sounds simple, but it’s not easy. It means reaching out when you don’t quite know what to say. It means tolerating that slight discomfort of feeling unsure or awkward and doing it anyway. It means sending the text, making the call, offering to sit with someone without trying to fix or explain what they’re going through.

Over time, something starts to happen when you live this way. You become someone people experience as reliable. And that matters more than we tend to realize.

Because when someone knows, on a deep level, “If something happens to me, this person will be there,” it changes how safe they feel in the world. It changes how they move through relationships. It creates a kind of security that most people are quietly missing.

The truth is, this kind of showing up goes against the grain of how we’re living. Most of us are busy, stretched thin, and used to organizing our lives around efficiency and comfort. Showing up for someone in pain is neither efficient nor comfortable. It takes effort. It takes intention. Sometimes it asks you to step directly into situations you’d rather avoid.

But it’s meaningful work. And it’s work that, more often than not, gives something back. Not always immediately, and not always in obvious ways, but over time it builds a social world that feels more solid, more dependable, more human.

So if you’ve been on the receiving end of that silence, I hope you don’t interpret it as a reflection of your worth. More often, it reflects the discomfort and uncertainty of the people around you.

And if you’re in a place where you can be the one who shows up, I would take that seriously. In a culture where this is breaking down, the people who do this consistently become incredibly important in the lives around them. Not because they have perfect words, but because they’re willing to be present.

This week, I’d encourage you to think of one person in your life who might be going through something - big or small - and reach out to them. Not when you’ve figured out exactly what to say, but now.

That’s how this begins to change.

Until next time,

James Ellis, The Loneliness Dr.