How to Deal with People with Mental Illnesses

When someone you love becomes sick with a mental illness who refuses to get help, there are a lot of emotions that you will experience. Some of them will come right away, some of them will come slowly. One of the most surprising in severe cases is grief.

To someone who has not faced this, it may be hard to understand how you can grieve a living person. The terrible thing about mental illness is that the person themselves change. It's often a gradual change, from healthy to ill, but they do change. As the mental illness holds onto them, like in cases of schizophrenia, dementia, and many other mental illnesses that are gripping those we love, the person gets sicker and sicker. Unlike other illnesses, their personality changes, they may become paranoid or even volatile. One moment you are talking to the person you used to know, the next, you find them screaming at you and you don't recognize the person before you. This can happen from day to day, or even moment to moment.

Set up Boundaries

Setting boundaries does not mean outright rejection. It means, I am limiting their influence on my life. This is probably the hardest part of this kind of grief, because where the boundaries should be is different for every person. The ill person may deal with certain people better than others. And different people deal with someone with mental illness more easily than others. One book I strongly recommend is called Boundaries. It teaches you that you how to set up healthy boundaries. It is not mean or heartless. It is self-preservation, love for yourself, respect for yourself. And often times it is also better and more healthy for the sick person as well.

One question to ask yourself when setting up boundaries is does that person take advantage of you. If they take advantage of you, it's important for you to learn to say, "no." Until you learn to say no, they will continue to take advantage of you. You may feel you have responsibility to that person, the truth is if they are an adult, even if they are your child, you do not have a responsibility to be at their beck and call. In some cases saying, "no" is actually being more loving to that person, especially in cases of enabling.

Are You An Enabler?

That brings me to my second point are you enabling their disease? Many parents of mentally ill persons, feel that they need to care for that person, even though that person is capable of caring for themselves. By setting up boundaries, you are making them take responsibility.of themselves and their actions. It also teaches them to become more independent.

Another thing you need to ask yourself; is this a toxic relationship? A toxic relationship means any type of relationship where you are being abused mentally, verbally, or physically. This is the hardest kind of boundary, because for your own protection, you need to distance yourself from them. In many cases this means not allowing them in your life. Your heart will break, that's normal, but you are not only protecting yourself, but those around you. By cutting off toxic relationships it allows your other relationships to blossom.

Allow Yourself To Cry

The one thing you need to remember is you are losing someone. Maybe they are physically present in your life, but mentally the person you once loved is gone. Let yourself cry. Let yourself mourn. Remember the good times, but know that the good times you had were not with this person. It was a healthy version of this person. You can hope you will have them back, but be realistic. In most cases, unless that person seeks medical help, they will never be back. They may have moments where they are doing better than other times, but expect that things can change right back quickly.

Mental illness is a terrible set of diseases. There is not enough known about the human brain to cure such diseases. Although it does not take away life, it takes away quality of life. It can affect those around the ill person more drastically than any other type of illness. Be honest with yourself, be realistic, set up boundaries, and let yourself grieve.