5 Ways To Help A Mental Health Sufferer – Ep 10

0:00 Kerry

Hi it’s Kerry from sailing with thankfulness and I’m so excited to show you my favourite corner of the boat. It’s actually where I love to sit and I like to use my computer or I like to read and in winter I love to just snuggle down there with my blanket. Today I’m going to be filming from there. I’m going to be talking about how you can help someone who’s struggling with mental health issues. Come and join me.

This was perhaps the most requested topic. I think that’s because so many of us, myself included, really struggle to know how to help somebody and sometimes we feel actually quite helpless. So today, I’m going to talk about the top five things that helped me on my journey to wellness. Hopefully it will give you some ideas as well when you’re working with loving on your loved one to help them.

1. Be An Advocate

1:09 Kerry

You can you become their advocate when needed.

When I first became unwell three and a half years ago I went to my local general practitioner and I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with anxiety and depression. I was given medication to take and told to stop working to try to reduce the stress in my body. For the following two to three weeks I became really unwell. I was not eating and I was sleeping 14 to 16 hours a day. I was nauseous all the time and lost about five kilos in that time. The depression worsened.

Looking back, I can see I was having a bad reaction to the medication but at that time I wasn’t able to work that out for myself. My daughter Haley was really worried so she came up to stay with me from Canberra. She told me that she wanted a second opinion and she took me back to my GP. As a result, my medication was adjusted. After a couple of weeks I came out of that early mental health fog thanks to Hayley’s help.

In this case, she became my advocate to help me get the right medication. I’m so thankful because at that time I couldn’t think for myself or reason for myself. I actually needed someone to step in and to come alongside me to help me.

Can you be an advocate for someone if they need it? What a wonderful gift you can give to somebody to help them on their mental health journey.

At my worst, when I was hospitalised for over seven months last year, Stephen, my husband became my much needed advocate. The drugs weren’t working, the psychology sessions weren’t working, the meditation, the breathing exercises, everything that we were doing to try and get well were not working. My psychiatrist said I was treatment resistant.

By this time my brain had flipped. If you remember in my last mental health blog I talked about how trauma and stress sets off the fight/flight reaction in the body and the cortisone runs through the body. This causes the brain to switch offline and is what happened for me. If you add the medication to that I really couldn’t think. I couldn’t reason, process or remember anything. Alternative therapies were suggested like electric shock treatment (ECT) and if that didn’t work then transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but because I couldn’t process anything, because my brain was offline, I really needed Stephen to be my advocate, to talk with the doctors, to look at all the alternatives and to suggest a helpful way forward. He was able to stand by me and help me make good decisions so that I could continue on my journey to wellness. I needed an advocate.

Again, maybe you can be an advocate for your loved one who really needs someone to stand with them, to talk for them, to suggest a way forward when they can’t do it for themselves.

2. Non-judgemental Love & Acceptance

4:47 Kerry

I hadn’t seen my children for months and months. I was too embarrassed by my stutter. My anxiety caused me to isolate from them and everyone else. You might know that anxiety and avoidance go hand in hand.

Finally I got up the courage and I invited Julia, Nicholas and Stu, three of my five children, over for dinner. This was a very, very big deal for me. I was having panic attacks and I kept wanting to cancel. When they arrived, straight away their non-judgment, their acceptance and their love of me made me feel at ease. Wen I stuttered they said ˝Oh, don’t worry mum. We also stutter when we’re anxious. Maybe it’s a family trait.˝ They just made light of it.

I felt so relieved that it was finally out in the open and they understood. I felt connected again. I felt love and acceptance. This was the beginning of my world starting to open up again after being isolated from everyone for so long. Them offering non-judgment, acceptance and love began to free me to move forward in my mental health journey.

3. Be Present. You’re Not The Fixer

6:18 Kerry

You don’t need to fix a person struggling with mental health challenges. Just being present with them is enough. In actual fact it’s a gift.

I know when I was in hospital I wasn’t the most exciting person to visit. I was highly drugged and slept a lot of the time. Due to the electric shock treatment (ECT) my memory was pretty much shot. If you did come to visit, me chances were that I wouldn’t even remember that you came. What I do remember and really appreciate from that time is when friends or family would come to sit with me or to be with me. It gave me connection and made my world bigger than the four walls in my hospital room. It made me feel valued and loved.

I know my dear husband, Stephen, came every day to visit me for seven months.

I had a gorgeous friend, Donna. She would come on a Saturday morning and visit me and just have a hot chocolate with me.

My brother, Matt, would come on a Tuesday night after work and again just sit with me.

There were other people that visited as well and each time it made me feel valued, cherished, loved and accepted. At that time I couldn’t love myself but by others coming to visit me it spoke volumes of my worth and others love for me. It was a real gift that I really appreciated and I’m thankful for.

4. Care For The Carer

7:54 Kerry

We’re getting there – number four – care for the carer.

There were times when Stephen, my husband, needed a break from me. He was pretty much my carer 24/7, 7 days a week. At this stage very few people including my family knew the extent of my mental health challenge. I was too embarrassed and shamed to tell people.

Stephen had some pressing things that he needed to get done but he knew that it wasn’t going to be safe to leave me on my own. He had to call out for some help so he called some good friends of ours who I’ve known for 30 years, Gavin and Glenda. He told them about the situation and he asked for help. They said bring her up. Drop her off with us and we’ll take care of her.

I remember being very angry at him at the time because I didn’t want people to know the challenge that I was facing but he needed help and so he did. I stayed with Gavin and Glenda for a week to ten days. Stephen was able to get done the necessary things that he had to get done and I was in really good hands.

Care for the carer – it’s something that you can do to really help in this situation.

5. Speak Life, Remind Them Who They Are

9:13 Kerry

This is probably the most important one that helped me. When others reminded me of who I was. When others spoke life into me.

While I’ve been on this mental health journey I actually forgot who I was. There was a time when I actually forgot most things. I even forgot Stephen’s name. I forgot lots of events, people and names as well. I also forgot who I was.

As I was becoming well and I was meeting people again when people spoke to me and reminded me of the connection that I had to them or to others it spoke life.

My daughter Haley said ˝my mum, she’s my hero˝. Oh my gosh. I thought really, because all I could remember from my past was all the negative, all the things that I’d failed in.

Others said to me ˝Kerry, you’re kind, compassionate and loving˝. Really, because I’d forgotten all that others said. ˝When you led, you led well˝. Really? ˝Glad that you were my boss˝. Really, because these are all the things that I forgot.

I forgot who I was. I forgot what I’d done and when someone came along and spoke life into me and reminded me of who I was I remember this bubbling that came up from inside me, of really wow. It gave me hope that in the future I could be those things again. So whenever you have an opportunity, whether someone’s struggling with mental health issues or whether they’re living a very normal life, if you have an opportunity to speak life into a person I’d encourage you to do it. It brings life and it brings hope and on this journey it can also bring healing.

This episode has been about how other people can help someone who’s struggling on their mental health challenge or journey.

In the next episode on mental health that I do I’ll be talking about the things that a person can do to really help themselves. Things like meditation and breathing techniques, sensory and tactile aids, exercise and diet. Those things that I’ve found really useful in my journey.

I want to finish this mental health episode by acknowledging that I really couldn’t have done this journey without God being by my side each step of the way. He’s guided me, given me peace and He’s helped me on this journey. I’m forever thankful to him.

It’s our hope and desire that you’ve found something in this video encouraging, inspiring or uplifting. If you did, make sure that you like it and subscribe on your favourite social media platforms. Be sure to click that notification bell so we can keep in touch. See you soon.