3 Loving Ways To Understand Mental Illness

The National Institute for Mental Health estimates that 18.6 percent of adults in the United States have a mental illness. This means that one out of every five people you meet has a diagnosable mental illness. Then, why don’t we talk about it much? Why is it so hard to know what to do?

Mental illness can bring up a lot of different emotions and can be hard to understand. Much like an individual with special needs, a person with a mental illness requires a lot of support from friends and family, and being a part of that support system can be as much a journey as the mental illness itself. When we’re put in this position as a friend or family member of someone affected by mental illness, we may feel helpless at getting through to our loved one. We strive to be God’s heart, hands, ears, and eyes, but where do we start?

We can’t belittle the emotional challenge of mental illness by declaring an easy solution, because there isn’t one. However we can reflect upon how God loves us, or simply, the fact that God does love us, and be that for our loved one. Doesn’t it make life so much better just to know we are loved? When love is hard, and we keep loving anyway, that’s when we realize that our capacity to love stems from God and stretches infinitely.

Father Moon describes how such a scenario would go: “If you want to be someone’s best friend, you should understand his agony and suffering, and comfort him in his misfortune. If you have a relationship with him through heart and love, you will move him, and he will move you.”

If you know someone with a mental illness, here are some ways you can extend your love and let them know that they are loved, that you believe in them and see them as God does: precious and divine sons and daughters capable of healing, love and growth.

Validate

When an individual has a mental illness, it consumes them, but it’s hard to really understand what that person is going through. In a TedTalk titled Depression, the Secret We Share, Andrew Solomon describes depression like this:

“The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality. It was vitality that seemed to seep away from me at that moment. Everything there was to do was too much work.” Solomon explained that, “You know it’s ridiculous while you are experiencing it. You know most people can manage. You are nonetheless in its grip and there is no way to get away from it.”

In other words, the person experiencing depression might know that things are not terrible, and that they “should” just stop feeling like that. The thing is, they can’t.

Everyone has their own experience of the world. However they may feel is a real and true experience. Even though we might feel differently, let them know that their feelings are valid.

Meet them where they’re at

It’s tempting to offer our own experience as foreshadowing of better times to come, but try to be patient. Attempt to be in the moment with them and take it day by day.

There is no cure-all treatment; however the important thing to remember is: when an individual is seeking help for a mental illness, that person is doing something incredibly brave: they are making themselves vulnerable by acknowledging something is wrong.

During this time it’s important to view these friends or family members as God would see them. They are at a point where they may no longer feel the vitality of life, or they may be trying to control a whirlwind of emotions. It is in this moment that God wants us to be with that person.

It’s a process

There is a lot of stigma attached to treating mental illnesses. Should we chemically alter our brains? Can we just get over it? As religious people, we might want to offer spiritual guidance. We might believe that mental illnesses are spiritual issues. While prayer and spirituality can be healthy components to treating mental illness, mental illnesses are actually like physical illnesses that require professional care. Just like with any medication for a physical illness, we all react differently to treatment. Getting better will take time, but it does not mean that there is no hope; it just takes a while.

Mental illness can leave us feeling powerless and confused. What we can do is see the divine nature of the person affected and keep in mind that it does get better. If a friend suffers through this kind of disease, we can listen, sit with them and let them know we are there.