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“You are the mother of all the freaks,” Maria’s twenty-something-year-old son repeats, and she smiles as if she has heard the greatest compliment. In fact, it has a sense of mission. How many young people have she already drawn from various psychotic states …? After several years of experience, he says that around twenty is an amazingly common phenomenon. Now her son is helping. They have a friend who calls in the middle of the night to announce salvation is coming. So they quickly determine who will talk to him.
- Maria’s son began to have mental problems in college. But not only him – two of his good friends also struggled with depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Mental disorders are increasingly affecting young people
- Maria says openly that living with a person suffering from mental disorders is very difficult. One must also be clear that it is not always possible to help him, because love from depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia cannot cure a person.
- How to help a loved one who has mental problems? Psychiatrist Dr. Tomasz Woźniak indicates what to do and what to absolutely avoid, so as not to worsen the patient’s condition
- You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page
Psychiatrist: A disease of the mind is no different from a disease of the body
Maria claims that the helplessness of young people when confronted with mental disorders is striking and too little is said about it. Anyway, helplessness concerns not only sick people, but also their environment. Nobody is ever prepared for depression or schizophrenia of their loved ones. And the efforts of the family most often focus on carefully concealing the disease, which still stigmatizes both them and the sick.
– First of all, it is important to remember that if we are talking about mental disorders, these are diseases in which the help of a specialist is most often needed – says Małgorzata Rutkowska, psychologist and analytical psychotherapist from the Psychomedic clinic in Warsaw.
– Sometimes it is believed that what is not seen in the form of changes in the body in laboratory tests is not the real disease. It’s not true. Mental disorders are as real diseases as somatic diseases, and they require a serious approach and treatment. The fact that mental problems “just happened” doesn’t mean they will pass by themselves. Most often, on the contrary, they intensify with time and become more difficult to cope with and treat, says the expert.
– There is no reason to approach mental illness differently than, for example, pneumonia – emphasizes Dr. Tomasz Woźniak, a psychiatrist from the Medox clinic in Pomiechówek. – The basic issue for both the patient and his relatives is diagnosis. Then information on the treatment process, e.g. whether the patient requires hospitalization. If someone has mild pneumonia, they don’t need oxygen or constant supervision. He can lie at home and take medications there. Does the family take him out for walks, for shopping, or forcing him to do some social activity? No, because he has pneumonia. He needs to lie down and heal. The same applies to mental illness – adds Dr. Woźniak.
– You have to get sick. Believe me, if the patient’s condition improves, he will be willing to leave the house. The disease has its own rights, and the patient sees the world differently and this must be understood – he adds.
Maria’s family grew by depression
– They were quite nice friends in high school – says Maria. – They had great academic results, all three. It seemed that they would conquer the world immediately after graduation. Because who, if not them. And then it all fell apart quite abruptly.
– Piotrek landed first under psychiatric observation. He was moving in with the girl and moving out. Later, social phobia appeared, he stopped leaving the house. The second, Paweł, who started his studies in England, suddenly stopped. He returned to the country and took up manual work in some warehouse, after having argued with the whole family. He’s in therapy now. And the third one was studying, but suddenly, for no apparent reason, he was overtaken by fear. The third one was my son … – says Maria.
– One day he called me from the university and said that he was coming home soon, “because something strange happened to him”. It was his first anxiety attack, but we had no idea at the time. He entered the hall and said: “I was sitting over a Chinese in a pub and suddenly I felt that I was driving away. That I don’t know where I am. Who are these people around ». After a dozen or so minutes, the world returned to normal, but my son, incidentally, a large man, 185 cm tall, got scared. Back at home, he watched everything suspiciously, as if afraid that his world would melt again. He did not fall asleep during the night. We sat on the floor talking until morning, and my stomach was rising up to my throat. Because from what he said, how he acted, something SCARY had happened. Something irreversible and my son grabs the remnants of reality like sinking boats. At the time, we thought it was schizophrenia. Dr. Google naturally helped in this diagnosis – says the woman.
Many parents say that their children are most afraid of the fact that they are irrevocably losing their minds. And they, as a rule, have no idea what is going on, they are unable to react. Meanwhile, this is how, for example, depression can manifest itself. Not lethargy and a decrease in energy, but disturbed breathing, mood, derealization (the affected person has a feeling that the surrounding world is changed, unreal), and anxiety states.
– I emphasize the importance of psychoeducation – says Dr. Woźniak. – The relatives of the patient should find out from the attending psychiatrist about the prodromal symptoms that herald the episode of the disease in order to react early. They should also find out about the recommended forms of treatment, i.e. what medications and when the patient must take.
- Do you suspect depression in yourself or your loved one? Do the research:
The son is cured, the mother is awake
– You have to learn all this on the run – recalls Maria – because the situation in depression can be dynamic. And not to give up professional help. Pharmacology can recover both from torpor and to quench anxiety relatively quickly. The very fact that it works, after about two weeks, has a soothing effect on everyone.
Małgorzata Rutkowska points out that the disease runs in the following system: the sick – people from the closest environment – the outside world. Both in a situation of an acute crisis, when we first notice disturbing changes in behavior, atypical mood (sadness, abandonment of activity or on the contrary – hyperactivity, unrealistic enthusiasm), the emergence of bizarre views, actions or aggression, and when the diagnosis is already known , the patient’s mental problems have a negative impact on the mental health of family members or partners.
And while we usually know what the person struggling with the disorder needs from us, we often forget about ourselves as someone healthy who is not the most important at the moment. It’s just that being the less important person, sometimes for many years, destroys not only someone who thinks this about himself, but the whole family. Because it is not a set of separate independent units, but a multi-faceted system. So it is difficult to separate the question of what to do about the sick person from what we should do about our own emotional situation.
Maria has similar reflections. She says openly that living with a person suffering from mental disorders is very difficult. One must also be clear that it is not always possible to help him, because love of depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia cannot be cured. In her case, the result was a combination of empathy while defending one’s own territory. He also adds that the latter is essential if you want to survive and keep your own self.
Dr. Tomasz Woźniak lists the rules that should be followed in contact with a depressed person. This simple guide helps you support the sick on a daily basis.
What to do?
- Talk – show interest in the patient’s condition and well-being
- Help with planning – get involved in organizing this person’s time
- Suggest an appointment with a specialist – help find professional help, take the patient to a doctor’s office or book a home visit
- Support – make the sick person believe that they can count on you
- Accept, understand – treat depression like any other somatic disease, let the sick person lie in bed if they feel the need to do so
- Encourage – encourage small activities, but do not force them. As the patient recovers, he will gradually increase his activity
- Listen, be patient – listen, but don’t force an answer
- Feel – be empathetic, feel sick
What not to do?
- Don’t give advice like: “you have to pull yourself together, get a grip”
- Don’t underestimate: “shake off, don’t worry”
- Don’t compare: “others have a lot worse, but they don’t break down”
- Do not criticize: “you are constantly complaining, you are always dissatisfied”
- Don’t underestimate: “you have to deal with it yourself”
- Do not command: “do something, go for a walk, do not lie in bed”
- Don’t judge: “you’re a pessimist”
- Don’t blame: “you are punished for your mistakes”
- Do not force: “maybe you would finally get up and do something”
– If a person with disorders is an adult and has relatively healthy contact with reality, i.e. there is no delusion, it is worth talking frankly with him about the situation, about his and our well-being – advises Małgorzata Rutkowska. – About what is difficult for her and what is difficult for us as a partner, family member, roommate. About what we can do together despite the disease and what unites us. About the fact that dealing with an illness is a common task and how to plan it. If we accompany the patient in his life and the treatment process, we must also have requirements for him, we have the right to demand compliance with the principles, the main of which is uninterrupted treatment, but also respect for the environment, respecting the feelings of others. This is extremely important especially in the case of people with personality disorders and addictions: they learn the existence and importance of interpersonal boundaries.
The psychologist’s words are confirmed by another story:
«I had a neighbor who lived under the same roof with my husband and two adult sons. All three suffered from schizophrenia. In addition, they did not take any medications from time to time. Both the husband and sons later had conflicts with the law, etc. The situation was unenviable, but this neighbor of mine knew how to deal with them while maintaining her own mental health. It seems to me that its acceptance played a key role. But not that the sick are allowed to do anything. On the contrary, she was able to set them tasks that they were able to carry out and feel satisfied with it ”.
Special support groups and therapy also help in coping with the role of a loved one. They will make it easier to experience difficult emotions as well as understand and express them.
You can part with your partner, and what about the child?
– In the event of a partner’s mental illness, we rethink in our minds what the relationship with this person means to us – says Małgorzata Rutkowska. – There may be dramatic questions about whether we are able to continue to be in this relationship, whether we have the strength to do so, whether the disease is not too damaging for us. It is good to consider then whether what has been recognized as a mental illness does not (and has not for a long time) contributed to the toxicity of the relationship. This is an important question, especially in the case of those who refuse treatment or torpedo it, e.g. by abandoning subsequent therapies. We cannot order anyone to be treated, but also no one – even a very sick person, as long as he is an adult – can force us to have a relationship with him.
So sometimes a breakup can have a therapeutic effect on those who form a relationship. He will free one from harmful entanglement and confront the patient with reality, which in turn can be a stimulus for beneficial changes on his part, such as self-reflection or therapy.
The attention of parents who have good contact with the child will probably not miss any of his strange disturbing behavior.
One of the experienced psychiatrists recalls that he was once asked for a home visit by the parents of an XNUMX-year-old girl. It was in April, a month before high school graduation. The girl practically stopped leaving the room. Since she was a great student and always devoted a lot of time to study, my parents thought that she was getting ready for exams, and she did not go to school, because you could spare a few hours of the faculty. They wondered, however, that she was not leaving the bed and not revealing the windows.
When the doctor interviewed it, it turned out that the girl planned to turn on the gas for that evening to kill herself and her family. The disease made her confident that a global cataclysm was coming, and to spare herself and her parents suffering, she decided to “save” everyone. So she made a decision about extended suicide. That is why it is so important not to delay, not to wait that maybe something will improve on its own, but to consult a specialist.
– If a child is struggling with a mental problem, the most important form of support is to respect the recommendations of his doctor or therapist – explains Małgorzata Rutkowska.
This often means participation in family therapy, as mental and behavioral disorders in children are most often the result of some imbalance in family relationships, which finds its “outlet” through the most vulnerable or weakest person.
In the case of a child, the family often denies the disease, and when it acknowledges it, it is faced with a type of mourning. Psychologists note that caring for a child with mental disorders is extremely exhausting, it also evokes extreme emotions: from love, compassion and the desire to save at all costs, to sadness, helplessness, fear, disappointment and rage, and even feelings of hostility.
We have the right to all these emotions, but when they become too difficult to bear, it is worth thinking about contacting a specialist who will help us. At the therapist or in the support group, you can express your feelings in a way that will not hurt anyone, because the child should not be the recipient of messages about our anger or hostility.
– It is also worth realizing that the mood accompanying a mental illness affects the household members – says Dr. Woźniak. – When the efforts of those who engage in help do not bring the expected results, everyone feels unhappy. Carers suffer from somatic diseases. Therefore, hospitalization is often the best solution for the patient and his family, because isolation cuts everyone off from negative stimuli.
If you feel that you are in a difficult situation and need to talk to a psychologist, do not wait and call the toll-free number 800 70 2222 XNUMX/XNUMXSupport Center for people in crisis. You can also send an email or chat. If you are a child, call us (also free and anonymous) number intended for minors: 116 111.
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