Over Reaction.

Simple question this week. Not-so-simple answer.

DEAR aap-
How worried should I be about a friend who is selling off his or her
personal stuff? I’ve read that can be a warning sign of everything
from drugs to depression/suicide and I don’t know how I should
approach this without possibly creating a bigger crisis than it is.
We’re all in our 20’s and more-or-less living on our own. What do you
think? – Worried

Dear Worried –
Have you looked out the window lately? A LOT of people are selling off
their belongs due to job losses and other financial hardships. Has
your friend recently (or not-so-recently) lost his/her job? Maybe
he/she is just trying to make ends meet. I know that in recent months
I have had to put some stuff up on ebay and craigslist, as have many
of my friends. These days such behaviors are as likely to be methods
of survival as they are ‘warning signs’ of some terrible turmoil.

All that said, does your friend have any history of drug
use/dependence or mental illness that would make you so quick to leap
to such dark conclusions? I’m left to guess… and I suppose that,
unless you’re an alarmist, you have some basis for your fears. I think
it is somewhat more likely that a person contemplating suicide would
be GIVING their belongings away, not trying to sell them to raise
cash, so I suppose that leaves open the possibility of drug use, sure.
That goes back to my earlier question - Do you have any other reasons
to suspect your friend might be getting caught in the spiral of
addiction?

How well do you really know your friend? Would he/she be likely to
tell you everything that was going on in his/her life? When I first
decided to move to California, I didn’t tell even some of my closest
friends… because I knew I would need a year to save up money. Toward
the end of that year, I also started selling off a lot of personal
items, some of them cherished belongings, but a lot of it was just
“stuff” I didn’t want to drag 3500 miles across a continent. Perhaps
your friend is quietly putting a similar plan into motion, or who
knows? Maybe he/she is just trying to scrape some extra cash together
for an upcoming vacation or birthday present. Maybe he/she just wants
to buy an iphone.

Like I said, if you’ve got additional evidence to increase the
likelihood of drugs/mental illness being the cause of this person’s
sudden increase in entrepreneurial zeal, then by all means do
something about it. Ask him/her honestly (and privately) to tell you
what is going on… You just might get the truth, and the truth might
not be nearly as sinister as you fear. It is always nice to know our
friends are looking out for us, but we also don’t want them jumping to
worst-case conclusions without all the facts. Good luck