Video Transcript : How can you support someone with a mental illness?

Welcome back to mental health integration. The short I am Brandon Appelhans  for the final time, because this is the final segment. This is segment nine. You  are almost done. I'm going to throw a plug in right here for the main course.  Again, I know you're sick of these plugs, but seriously, there's a lot of cool stuff  in there. If you are interested in serving, if you serve in clergy in any way, shape  or form, there is a section of that course on how to implement mental health  ministry in your own church, and what the church can do about mental health.  That's missing here completely. It's really cool. Go see it. If you want to know  about suicide prevention. This is that's not in here. It's in there. So go see it. If  you want more depth on all of these topics, I go into so much more depth on all  of these things. It's there. Go see it. With that, we're going to talk about the last  section, which is how to support someone that you care about who has a mental illness. Let's go ahead and jump in. So how do you support someone you love?  You want them to get better. You want them to get help. But what do you do? I  can't tell you the number of people that I've had expressed interest in this,  because they have loved someone, they care for someone, and then they don't  know what to do. They have the right answers. They've sometimes done  research. They want to see their loved one become the person they were again.  But now, who are they? They're sitting under all of these mental health issues,  all of this struggle, and they can't seem to get better. So what do you as a  supporter do? I can tell you the first step, it's to listen. Before you try and offer  really great solutions, and before you try to solve that person's problems cure  them. Now they might be ruminating around some of the pain from their mental  illness. You might have to go for a walk with them. You might have to distract  them. You might have to go do something. Might have to go do something fun  with them. God forbid that people have fun when they're actually depressed or  anything like that. I'm kidding. Go and do those things with them. Go play. But  listen and hear them. They need to know that you care. They need to know that  they are heard before anything else good can come about. This is a trite  statement. It happens a lot in the church, but people don't know how much you  know until they know how much you care. That's true in this space. You have a  lot that you can offer. But the main thing that they need right away is they need  you to listen. The next thing you can think about is that listening gives dignity.  They are still a person made in the image of God who is valuable and worthy.  But right now, they probably don't believe in themselves. They feel like their  world is falling apart. They feel like their capacity is diminished. They don't know  how they're going to pay their bills. They don't know how they're going to take  care of their family. They don't know if their world is going to fall apart. They feel  completely insecure about all of their roles and their own being, and they don't  know what to do, but they just have this mental illness thing. How's it going to  get better? And they need a friend, if you are their friend or their pastor or  anything else, just be that to start. They need you to listen. They need you to be 

present. They need you to hear them, and they need you to know you  understand, if you do that, that's half the battle. I remember a study about  survivors of rape that said that if a survivor of rape, if the first person they told  about it actually heard them and validated their experience, the rate of the  trauma was significantly lowered. This isn't rape, but I can tell you that having  someone hear my story and validate it and say, I know it was hard, I don't know  what your pain is, but I hear you and I believe you that is so valuable, and from  a voice of experience, when someone gives me the dignity of sharing their story  with me. I know my reaction is thank you. I know that was hard. I've been there,  not like you have. Our pain looks different, but I think I know a little bit about  what that feels like, and I'm sorry it happened to you, and I believe you, and that  recognition goes so far. Everything else that you do from there will be helpful in  some way or another, as long as you start with love and without judgment, and  as long as you keep that conversation in love and without judgment. My next  statement to you is, if you care for somebody, I want you to be a little selfish, but bring it in. I'm trying to take care of them. I know that's exactly why you need to  be a little bit selfish. You need to take care of yourself in ways that bring you life.  You need to go play. You need to go see your other friends. You need to go and  be listened to and heard and cared for. Okay, the person with mental illness just  had all of their abilities shrunk. Their capacity was greatly, diminished. Okay, you also, as a supporter, did not ask for this extra thing in your life. It diminishes your capacity too, and so you need to take the time to take care of yourself, because  you can't help somebody else if you're in the middle of falling apart, you might  be able to help a little, but definitely not to your full capacity. So take care of  yourself, sleep, exercise, do all of the things that we talked about a person with  mental health issues doing, even if you need to get pills. Get pills whatever you  need to do. For the record, get them from a doctor who's board certified, not  from a kid on the street, like not those pills, the good ones from the doctor and  the pharmacist. Go ahead and take care of yourself. Play enjoy. When you have  a vibrancy of life about you, you're able to carry a lot more of this stuff, and it  won't weigh you down. Oftentimes, I see supporters who are so burnt out and  destroyed and distraught that they're not helping at all anymore. They think they  are. They're present, they're there, but their presence isn't helpful. It's  depressing. It's hard. And what it takes to actually serve this person is to be able to lift yourself up, which means you need to take care of yourself and take that  rest, take that Sabbath, take that time, and then you can help if the person that  you love needs resources. You cannot make them use those resources, but you  can find them. You can look up what resources are available and help them get  appointments. If the person that you love needs a workout buddy or something  like that, you can help with that, but you can't outwork your buddy. Whoever it is, it's your son, daughter, mom, dad, brother, sister, wife, whatever, friend, never  outwork the person you're working with. Okay, if you are willing to give 100% of 

what you've got in the tank when you're full to them, make sure they're willing to  give 100% too. I've met a lot of people who are willing to give 100% and it's  amazing to see their support networks rally around them and how much healing  they can experience. But I've also seen people who are only willing to give 10%  and it's amazing how much they drained their entire network around them  because their network was trying to give 100% and got frustrated because this  person wasn't actually taking their feelings seriously, and they started to actually like disdain the person who they were trying to help, and in return, the person  who is trying giving that 10 or 15% felt like the person who was trying to help  was trying to help was trying to control them, and they returned that forth. To  disdain themselves, you don't need to create a relationship for butting heads.  You can create one where we're actually improving each other, but that takes  letting go, taking care of yourself. And not out working your loved one. If you  have more questions about this, there's still a three credit course that you should take, but in the meantime, thank you for being here with me. It has been an  absolute pleasure to walk with you through this. Thank you for the opportunity,  and God bless you.