Mutual Support in Friendship

What is mutual support?

Mutual support is different than mutual aid because aid is more about survival work and helping people who need it the most. This is very important and should be done as well, but I just wanted to distinguish support from the separate aid social justice practice.

• Mutual Aid Chart by Dean Spade

This isn’t novel, many marginalized communities and people of different cultures prioritize helping friends and family out in a community-oriented way.

• This is a little bit more focused on doing it with your friends first to show how you can support the people in your life while also not having to depend too much on a small amount of people.

Mutual support isn’t transactional, but it is reciprocal.

• Reciprocal vs Transactional Relationships

Reciprocity can be a hard balance to judge but the main thing to remember is to notice trends/patterns rather than strictly value in/out.

• Who is reaching out? Who talks more when you hang out? Who asks for help? Who gives help?
• These are usually long-term trends as well, since the amount of time and effort someone has to put into a friendship ebbs and flows over time.

An important part of reciprocity is that you shouldn’t expect it to be done in-kind, meaning that you shouldn’t expect to get something in the same form back.

• The Rules of Reciprocity
• Maybe you give someone a lot of emotional support, but you don’t need that so if they wanted to, they couldn’t reciprocate that way.

I think the main idea of mutual support is to expand the total surface area of what someone can help you with as well as increasing the number of people you can rely on.

• In other words, anyone (of your friends) can help you with anything (that you feel comfortable with/need/want)!
• There are some things that traditionally would only be reserved for your partner when living together, but as I discuss here, I think there is a benefit in detangling those expectations.

Mutual support can of course be done by your partner/people other than your friends, I just wanted to specifically highlight the power of platonic relationships in making your life richer, fuller, and easier.

Sharing Skills

This is something that is definitely popular in mutual aid because a larger community will have a greater network of skills. Like a mechanic offering consultations and oil changes or a contractor helping someone fix their front steps.

There are so many different things, but here is a small list of important ones:

• Sewing/mending
• DIY/home repair
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Organizing

Sharing Things

• Physical media
  • Books
    • There are plenty of used bookstores where you can buy books for pretty cheap. Once you’re done reading you can just lend the book out/give it to someone else who you think might enjoy it.
  • Movies
    • Streaming movies can be harder to share/expensive to rent, but you can find movies really cheap at the thrift store or used book stores. Even new movie releases aren’t too expensive as long as its not 4K UHD.
• Clothes
  • It can just be ties, belts, shoes, or other things that are a bit more flexible across body types/gender expression.
  • If you are friends with someone with the same style or body type then you could absolutely share a closet.
    • More clothes but the same amount of space being taken up at your house in your closet!
  • Hand-me-downs when it doesn’t fit you anymore or you don’t like it.
• Tools
  • You can make do in a lot of DIY projects without a drill, but it sure does make your life easier! However sometimes not enough to justify buying a drill or storing it in your house long-term for a small amount of total uses.

Sharing Spoons

“Spoon Theory” was initially created to talk about chronic illness but has also been adopted by people with execution dysfunction (like ADHD and autism).

• Spoons refer to the limited amount of physical and mental energy that a person has availably for daily tasks (whereby anything that someone has to do is a task).

Some tasks, especially domestic, are easier or more enjoyable to others. This means that they are better suited to do this task.

• Maybe they do it for you, maybe they just help you out.
• Task for sharing spoons might be more fundamental/basic as compared to the sharing skills/things sections.

It can be hard to outsource your tasks to other people.

• There has to be trust built up over time, especially if someone is more particular about the outcome of a task.
  • Maybe they watch you do it for the first few times (or all the times if they need more verification for their anxiety).
  • You might be better off starting out with smaller tasks to show capability.
• Listing out your processes in excruciating detail can help people understand your process.
  • Could help to improve it too if you are open to feedback
  • This helps you delegate easier too without having to expend too much energy trying to explain to someone or fix their mistakes later on
  • Have a friend help you document it if it makes it easier for you

Food and Shelter

Your environment has a lot of effect on your mental state and also reflects your mental state so once your space is dirty it can be hard to get it clean.

• Definitely ask for help and don’t be ashamed most people really don’t care
• Cleaning can especially be hard for people with sensory issues

You have to eat to live.

• A lot of time what’s harder than cooking is figuring out what to eat.
• Cooking with friends and sharing meals is good because it also allows you to share food when you made too much

Mental Load and/or Accountability

• Reminding someone to schedule their doctor’s appt
  • Especially if they don’t set reminders on their phone or have banner blindness about them/ignore them
• Asking if they’ve eaten, drank water, exercised, etc.
• Check in about habits
• Pet and plant care
• Life administration
  • Setting up doctors appointments
  • Renewing license car or other stuff