PROMOTING GOOD MENTAL HEALTH

It Just Takes a Friend

By Ralph Provenza

If a friend told you he had diabetes, how would you react?

Like most people, you'd express sympathy and concern, offer your support and reassurance, and feel confident that your friend's condition would improve with treatment.

Now, if that same friend told you he had a mental illness, what would you do?

Mental health problems can affect anyone at any time, and caring friends are part of the formula for recovery. That's why it's important for everyone to know how to support our friends who are living with a mental illness.

The reality is mental illness is no different from physical illness. Conditions like depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders affect a person's body. But the emotional and psychological aspects of mental illness make supportive friends and family even more important to a person's recovery.

When people respond negatively to a friend's mental illness, the stigma surrounding the diagnosis makes it harder for the person to battle the illness.

Stigma is the aura of disapproval and avoidance that surrounds mental health problems, and this fear of mental health problems is a major problem in itself. It's a lot like prejudice.

Stigma gets in the way of treatment and recovery, and makes it hard to find a job and a place to live. It can even keep people from getting treatment.

But there are also steps that anyone can take to counter stigma.

Anyone can be a friend and help just by being there. Offer your reassurance, companionship, emotional strength, and acceptance. You can make a difference just by understanding and helping your friend throughout the course of his or her illness and beyond.

Mental health problems are surprisingly common. In fact, they affect most families in America at some point. But studies also show that most people with mental illnesses get better and many recover completely, especially when they get support.

Are you ready to be a friend to someone with mental illness? Here are five steps to help:

1. Share the facts about mental health problems and about people with these problems. Speak up if you hear or read something that isn't true.

2. Treat people with mental health needs with respect and dignity, as you would anybody else.

3. Don' label people with mental health problems by using terms like "crazy," "psycho," or "nuts."

4. Don't label people by their illness. Instead of saying "She's a schizophrenic," say "She has schizophrenia."

5. Teach children about mental health. Help them see that these problems are like any other illness and can be treated.

Remember, recovery just takes a friend.