Here are seven important steps you can take now to help your support people. This many sound familiar if you read last week's feature . There are many people in your life who are potential support people. Support people are not all the same. Your therapist is a support person, as is your psychiatrist.
Family members can be support people, and so can friends.
It may be difficult to imagine how some of these people could offer you support, and that is why you might need to change your concept of what a support person should be. Mainly, you should not be relying on one person to take you everywhere, to practice all of your desensitization exercises with you, and to listen to every detail of every problem. And . . . you should begin to focus on how each person supports you rather than on how they don't. If your boss and co-workers know about your condition, their support will probably consist of knowing that you might leave a meeting suddenly, and not getting uptight about it. Your boss will not be your confidant.