How Do We React to People with Mental Illness?

So someone points out to you that ‘So and So’ is bipolar?  Or self harms?  How do we react to people with mental illness?

Do we laugh?  Feel uncomfortable? Nod our head in unworthy agreement…as if to say we always had a sneaking suspicion that there was a bolt or two missing? 

Or do we avoid the said individual?  Regard them with sneaky suspicion henceforthwith?  Become the office tabloid reporter? 

Or hang one for this one … Do we find a way to lay them off, if we are their boss?  Or unbelievably ‘unfriend’ them on Facebook?

How do we react to people with mental illness, really?

There are several ways how anyone of us can react to people with mental illness.  The person suddenly becomes one who is ‘not like the rest of us’.  Come one, lets be honest.  They are like an alien who has invaded earth territory!

It is also very surprising how those who are close to them react too.  Funny enough, these are the very people they least expect to be non supportive.

They expect friends to still be friends.  Still make them feel inclusive.  And their family?  Yeah, blood is thicker than water and all that.  But when it comes to mental illness, do medical staff stick closer to them than their brother?  Do family begin to lose patience?  Treat them like dummies with no brain?

The sincere truth is no one wants to be around someone who ‘drags them down’.  No one feels comfortable with someone who is always feeling suicidal or ‘depressed’.  Or acting weird.  I’m right, am I not?  It is draining and does put a strain on any relationship, be it family (to include the church), marriage, work, or friendship.

Mental illness can seem like some mythical beast has attacked someone.  In English, it means it is all in their head.  We have the solution too.  Just ‘snap out of it’!  After all no one is having pool parties everyday.

An illness is an illness, be it migraine or depression.  No one is asking that anyone be a superhero to one that is challenged with mental illness.  After all, we all have our limits, tolerance limits even.  Yeah, some people would faint at the sight of blood and would be no use in the unfortunate case of an accident.

However, just as we would not knock a wounded person, let us try not to knock those who are in a mental place they have not chosen to be.  If someone with schizophrenia person, for example, really affects you so much that you avoid them, I wonder if you would do the same to someone in hospital with a physical illness.  Perhaps you would.  As I said, we all have our tolerance limits.

Illness whether physical or mental is ‘depressing’ for want of a word to use.  There is no laughing matter where sickness is concerned.  There is nothing to celebrate about sickness.

However, I think we all have it in us to be just a teeny weeny bit ’empathic’ to those who need our support if we are guilty of being otherwise.  A kind word costs nothing.  Compassion is free too.

Or if none of the above, then we can leave an unkind word unsaid!

Yes, we all cannot be Florence Nightingale or Mother Theresa, but for the sake of love and humanity, we can each AFFORD to treat people challenged with mental illness as humans, and not aliens.

So back to my question.  How do we react to people with mental illness?

With a heart.

If you like what I have shared today, please share this post with someone today.  Lets spread some humanity.  Thank you.

About The Author

Zoe

Zoe met Eze (Chuck) in the 14th year of what turned out to be an 18 year ‘journey’ with mental illness. They got married less than a year of meeting with Zoe fully knowing Chuck had a diagnosis of mental illness. In the 18th year, Chuck defied the odds of mental illness. A consultant psychiatrist signed him off the mental health system with a bill of NO MENTAL ILLNESS. The consultant was so amazed by Chuck’s astonishing recovery that he even questioned how Chuck was diagnosed with mental illness all those years before, in the first place! Today Chuck is free from medication, its dependency and hospitalizations. Zoe’s award nominated book, DEFYING THE ODDS, chronicles the highs and ‘lows’ of this journey. Zoe, often writing from the standpoint of a caregiver, clearly understands that mental illness does not only affect an individual challenged with the disease, but also families, marriages and society as a whole.

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