How should I be there for my "crisis friend"?

If they’re not going through a breakup, they’re having issues with a romantic partner. Their car broke down on the side of the freeway. They’re embroiled in an internecine conflict  with a coworker. You ask if you can help, but the answer is either “no” or “I don’t know what to do.” Yes: We’re talking about the Crisis Friend. 

The term “crisis friend” gained steam on TikTok in late 2023. User @carpoolsandcountryclubs describes the characteristics of a “crisis friend” in a now-deleted post: “Every day, every week, there is a new crisis that they have to have support for — they need to be emotionally rallied around, and everyone needs to get behind them.”  Crisis friendships are not exclusive to millennials, but according to Christina Roig, a Licensed Professional Counselor, millennials are having more conversations around it and have helped put a name to it. 

What is a crisis friend?

As Diem editor and GQ contributor Kate Lindsay wrote earlier this year, a crisis friend is different from a friend who’s hit a rocky patch or two. “Unlike a friend who happens to be going through a crisis,” Lindsay writes, “a capital “C” Crisis Friend repeatedly takes up all the oxygen in the room with their seemingly relentless stream of issues. They’re always going through something, and these crises are consistently presented in such a way that you’d feel like an asshole if you didn’t immediately drop whatever you’re doing to help.” 

Crisis friendships create an asymmetrical friendship dynamic: All your communication, conversations, and plans revolve around the crisis friend’s problems, and your problems go unaddressed. What makes it especially tough is that, for the most part, crisis friends’ issues are very real and seemingly random. 

The crisis friend often utilizes that dynamic  as an outlet for processing, attention, or some other need to be met, according to Roig. “Some clients I see who take on this role know that they are engaging in it, but struggle with stopping. Through therapy, we can work to reduce these behaviors by finding a different way the person can have these needs met. The goal is to make relationships more balanced and safe.”

Sometimes, unfortunately, crisis friends are  unaware that they are crisis friends. “This can be hard to navigate with friends. Some crisis friends can be receptive to this feedback and use it as a catalyst for change,” Roig says. “Others might not be ready to confront it so you could be met with defensiveness.  The latter tend to have a harder time forming and/or staying in relationships and will often portray themselves as the victim.”

Am I the crisis friend?

To be clear: we all experience hardships, sometimes with a compounding effect. Last summer, my friends and I experienced what we now refer to as Bad July: one friend got dumped by her partner of five years only to discover he had been cheating on her for the entirety of their relationship; another friend’s husband was rushed to the ER with jaundice caused by an untreated hypoactive thyroid; and I got laid off for the second time in 11 months. We can look back now and laugh at how absurdly bad last summer was because we all got through it together. 

“In my 20s, I was definitely the crisis friend,” Kelsey, a 35 year old woman in Michigan, told me. “I was hopping around from bad relationship to bad relationship, treating my friendships as places for me to rant without actually looking for a solution to my problems. I was in the desperate pursuit for stability when I had none.” 

Today Kelsey is married and has twin four-year-old daughters, and regards her 20s as a time when all her friends were in chaos. She has sympathy for her friends who still find themselves in constant crisis mode. She regards herself as “solution-oriented” and tries to give advice or solve problems for her crisis friends, but if they just want a friendly ear to talk to, she tries to give them that too. That’s what she needed when she was younger, and she didn’t always find it with her friends, she says.

How can we show up for our friends?

Marie, a 26-year-old in New York, says she feels privileged that her crisis friends trust her to be the shoulder to lean on, “especially in times when we all struggle with vulnerability and asking for help.” But on the other hand, she says, it can be exhausting and draining, “especially when the crisis friend fails to acknowledge the role they play in the constant crisis mode they might be operating from.”

Here are some ways to show up for your friends who are going through hard times:

Ask how your friend wants you to help. Do they need someone to vent to? Are they actively looking for solutions to a problem? This can inform how you proceed in assisting them.

• Distract them. Give their nervous system a break and take their mind away from what they're spiraling on — suggest taking them to a movie, a concert, or just watching a few episodes of Love Island USA.

• Get them off their phone. If you find yourself on the receiving end of a barrage of texts, voice memos, and/or phone calls from a crisis friend, suggest a physical activity, like a walk in the park or a yoga class together. 

Refrain from silver linings — the sentences that start with “Luckily…” or “At least…” — to try to make them feel better. The only thing worse than experiencing hardship is having people try to make you see the positive before you’re ready. In the moment when the pain is most acute, your friend needs their pain witnessed and honored.Try something like, “Tell me how you’re feeling, if you feel like it,” or “That sounds really hard.” Or just be an active listener while they’re talking.

Don’t be afraid to set boundaries

Boundaries are incredibly important, Roig says. “This can be hard to implement in friendships, especially if someone struggles with people-pleasing tendencies, but setting boundaries helps everyone involved have happier and healthier relationships. Boundaries are not rules people have to follow; they are expectations you have for people you are in a relationship with.”  

You can and should give space to friends who are going through a hard time, she says, but there are limits. When it is happening too often or it feels like you are unable to properly support them, it’s okay to suggest something like therapy. If a friend is already in therapy, you can also suggest they bring their many crises to the trained professional they’re working with. Support can look different for each friend and each situation. 

Some signs that it’s time to set boundaries can include: 

• Finding yourself avoiding your friend

• Feeling exhausted after spending time together

• Noticing that you’re starting to neglect your own care

“If you’re coming home from time together and feel like it was a very one-sided conversation and that you didn’t get what you needed, that can also be an indication,” Roig says.

Marie, who often finds herself being a sympathetic ear for her crisis friends, says she knows it’s time to set boundaries when she starts getting emotionally affected by the amount of time she spends catering to her friends’ needs, or when she finds herself putting their needs consistently above her own. 

“That tells me I have ignored my own cues and I need space to breathe and reset, and I communicate those boundaries,” she says. “It can be hard, and there is some residual guilt, but caring for myself is also important — if I don’t do that, I can’t be there for my friends either.”

Good friendships withstand hard times

We’ve all been the crisis friend at some point — and we’ve all been there for a friend who’s taking their turn as a crisis friend. The longer your friendships last — hopefully for years and years — the more you and your friends are likely to experience rough patches. What matters is how you work through them, and show up for your friends as they show up for you when times are tough. 

Friendships and community in general are so important to our overall health and well-being, Roig says. “I believe that the “crisis” friend and the “mom” friend in some instances are a direct result of our society moving away from collectivism and towards hyper-individualism,” she adds. “We all feel the need for connection. When that is threatened and we sense detachment, we can respond in ways that aren't always socially appropriate. Helping to support friends through this rather than writing them off can make a difference in our interpersonal lives and on a larger scale. Friendships deserve just as much attention and care as other relationships in life.”