How to help someone with mental illness
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Learning about the illness can help you understand how it affects the person you care for and might make you feel more confident caring for them.
You can learn about the illness by going to carers groups or services. There you can meet others who may have been through similar experiences and get support and information. Most areas have carers groups or services. You can search online or contact local social services to enquire about different groups.
On trustworthy pages, you can also read about mental disorders.
Speak to the person you help when they are unwell about what signs they receive. You may find this helpful if they are unpleasant in the future. When you take and if you have any side effects, you can ask about what medications they are taking.
How can I support the person, I care about emotionally?
- Offer the person your support to listen. It doesn’t mean you have to tell them a lot or come up with solutions to their problems when listening to someone. Often it will encourage you to talk about your issues and realize that people are listening.
- Don’t be shy to ask them how they feel and how they hear their responses. Ask if you should do something to help if you don’t feel fantastic. Make sure you’re not overwhelmed or that it isn’t.
How can I encourage the individual I care to receive treatment?
- You can find that you don’t want to care from the person you sponsor.
- Do not think they need assistance and things will improve on their own,
- Don’t think it will work for treatment,
- They’re not unwell, they don’t understand.
- Are afraid of what is going to happen to you if you tell your doctor what you feel,
- What other people will say, are concerned, are worried that their career or studies would be impacted,
- Hopeless are unwilling to experience the past
It can be quite upsetting if the person you care about does not want support. If they are treated under the Mental Health Act, nobody else can compel them to seek psychiatric care. Sometimes this is called “sectioning.”
It can help if you propose to attend and support an appointment with them. You may choose to wait outside the procedure or in the parking room because you do not want you to go to the meeting.
When someone you care for doesn’t want help, you may offer to help:
- Ask them how they’re doing,
- Ask why they don’t want to get assistance,
- Explain your concern if they look angry, upset, nervous or concerned and seek to comfort them,
- Explain what sort of help they should receive and
- Provide guidance before their consultation with a doctor or request to meet with their practitioner.
If the person that you endorse has irrational or paranoid beliefs, certain people like GPs may feel like conspiring against it. It is difficult to cope with and is normal whether the patient has delusions or struggles with schizophrenia.
If you try to refute the illusions explicitly, it will make matters worse. This could be by telling the doctor to help.
You might want to focus on the short term on other ways to ensure a healthy individual is safe and healthy and to ask social services for help.
Some may refuse to receive assistance even if you try to support it. It is important that you do not give up and remain hopeful. It might take a while to get assistance.
An original article is posted in:
https://www.rethink.org/advice-and-information/carers-hub/supporting-someone-with-a-mental-illness/
