We often feel closest to our friends when they show up for us in hard times, and most let down when they don’t.
Those rough patches carry a lot more weight than regular day-to-day catchups, and how people handle them can make or break a friendship long after the dust has settled. When someone close to you is going through a crisis, figuring out how to support them isn’t always easy. Plenty of people freeze up because they’re terrified of putting their foot in it, while others lean on empty cliches that only make things worse.
Knowing what to actually say, and what you’re far better off avoiding, makes a massive difference when a friend needs you in their corner.
Avoid saying “don’t cry”.
There’s a common misconception that emotions we don’t express simply disappear. In reality, the opposite tends to be true. People generally need to talk about how they’re feeling in order to get through a hard time.
Research on grief backs this up clearly. People who talked less about the death of a spouse were found to be less healthy in the year that followed compared to those who spoke about it more openly. One person reflecting on the most helpful support they received during grief described a nurse who simply held them and let them cry, without telling them to stop.
The better approach is inviting a friend to share how they’re actually feeling. If tears come, something as simple as “I’m proud of you for letting it out” goes a long way.
Don’t insist that “you have to be strong”.
The most supportive thing you can offer someone struggling is validation, alongside space to explore the full range of what they’re feeling. The least helpful responses do the opposite, denying someone’s feelings and telling them how they should act or feel instead.
Insisting a friend needs to “be strong” dismisses whatever vulnerable feelings they’re having in that moment, and implies they should keep suppressing those feelings going forward too. A more supportive response offers validation instead, something like “however you’re feeling is okay” or “of course you feel that way”.
Give “let me know if you need anything” a miss.
This phrase feels supportive, but it rarely leads anywhere useful. A friend going through a hard time is often unsure whether the offer is genuine, and even when they do believe it, the phrase silently pushes the burden onto them, both to identify what they need and to find the vulnerability to ask for it.
A more effective approach involves offering specific forms of help directly: picking up groceries, doing a load of laundry, or watching the kids for an afternoon. Research on grief support has found that practical help with everyday tasks tends to be the most valued form of support, particularly in the earlier stages.
Never tell them to “get over it”.
If a friend is still struggling months after a difficult event, it can be tempting to suggest they should have moved on by now, but there’s no universal timeline for healing. Research reviewing responses to stressful events found that around 1 in 10 people remain in a chronic state of stress long-term, while a similar proportion appear okay initially before getting worse later on.
Just as you can’t will a broken bone to heal faster, you can’t rush grief or depression along either. Expecting emotions to resolve on a set schedule can actually backfire. Research has found that people who judge their own emotions tend to experience the highest levels of anxiety, depression, and mood instability.
Rather than judging how long a friend’s healing is taking, it helps to treat that timeline as neutral information entirely. Someone isn’t doing better because it takes less time, and they’re not failing if it takes longer. A supportive line here might be: “it’s okay to feel bad for as long as you need to, and I’ll still be here.”
Make sure you don’t just disappear.
Finding the perfect thing to say to a struggling friend can feel genuinely difficult, but saying nothing at all is worse than saying something imperfect. People going through hard times often notice others starting to pull away, declining calls, or even avoiding them in public. That withdrawal teaches people to stop expressing their emotions out of fear of being abandoned, which only deepens the isolation.
When things are going smoothly in our own lives, it’s easy to underestimate how much a simple check-in can mean to someone struggling. For that person, it can be the difference between carrying their pain alone or having someone alongside them, and social support remains one of the strongest predictors of resilience through hard times. A simple message like “I was just thinking of you, wondering how you’re doing today” can carry far more weight than it seems.
