As a baby boomer the song “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye was an important song. It questioned some of the things happening at the time. Well, that question and song popped into my head yesterday when presented with a situation from someone I know. Apparently there is possibly some issues at home that is affecting a young person’s life. The person is a smart, and caring with a possibly bright future. The signs of abuse are there, which raises the question… “What’s going on?” A lot of time we do not know what goes on behind the closed doors of families. Many times we may be embarrassed by the situations we may find ourselves in, through no fault of our own. So the question of “what should we do” was posed to me today when these signs of trouble presented themselves.
I LOVE helping people, but I have learned over the years that you can only help people who want to help themselves. So my advice was to just be a caring honest human and ask the question “are you ok?” Present an opportunity to open the door to a discussion. A start to see if the person is interested in helping themselves, if there was an abusive situation going on. If something is there, and the person is open to receive and participate in help and change, we can then explore possible solutions. We can then start to “work the problem.” Step one in helping others is to ask the questions… “What’s going on?” “Are you ok?”