The other day, I was with a group of people who were talking about someone who had seemed to be struggling with life at college. This person had trouble making friends, he was getting bullied by people in his classes and his online “friends,“ so he stopped showing up to class. He wouldn’t leave his room to go eat because he didn’t have anyone to go eat with and although the people I were sitting with wanted to help this person, we didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t trying to seek help from anyone and he wasn’t trying to do anything to fix what was going on. That was when one person said, “It might be hard, but sometimes you can’t save them.”

I have been thinking about this for days now, about how sometimes you can’t save people. Maybe it’s my overly emotional personality kicking in, but that still just doesn’t sit right with me. I want to be able help everyone, especially when they are struggling, but what about if it’s a case like this? What if it is someone who doesn’t want to be helped? Who doesn’t want to saved? Do you just give up? That is what has been especially tricky for me, the thought of just giving up on someone. The person in my group who had said sometimes you can’t save them, had also added “Sometimes these people just have to hit the bottom to realize the consequences” which, is hard for me to wrap my head around. How do you just let someone go who is struggling? How do you let them hit rock bottom and suffer the consequences in order for them to finally seek help? Is that what human beings are supposed to do?

You want to reach out and do everything humanly possible to help, but sometimes even that isn’t enough. Maybe you do have to let that person hit the bottom and suffer the consequences so that they can realize they need help. But maybe you can keep trying and trying and trying to help that person. If you keep trying, then you can help them, right? The saying is common, “You can’t save everybody,” but how can you just let someone go like that, even if they don’t want to be saved?