Here’s How You Can Best Support Your Loved One’s Mental Health Battle
Watching a loved struggle with mental illness affects you deeply. Whether it’s a family member or a close friend, loving them means carrying their burdens and supporting them every step of the way. But even if you’re understanding and patient, you may feel out of your league when it comes to mental illness, and that’s a good place to start because it means you’re ready for some guidance.
Here, Joy Kwakuyi, DNP, PMHNP-BC, our experienced integrative psychiatric nurse practitioner at Faith Integrated Psychiatry in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, offers his expert biblically based advice and practical steps to help you support a loved one who suffers from a mental illness.
Educate yourself
More than half of all Americans will experience mental illness during their lifetime. Mental health illnesses include a long list of different conditions with different symptoms, and knowing how to diagnose and treat them takes years of higher education and rigorous professional training.
The good news is, you don’t have to have any of those credentials to support your loved one. But you do need to be willing to learn all you can about what they’re experiencing.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to help someone with a mental health condition is assuming you know how it feels. For example, you may think that because depression looks like sadness, and you know what sadness feels like, you can fix it by cheering them up. But mental illness is more than intense regular emotions.
So, the more you know about the condition your loved one has, the better able you’ll be to support them in a meaningful way. You can learn about a few of them here on our website:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
These are just a few of the many emotional and psychological issues, but if the one you need to learn about isn’t on this list, Dr. Kwakuyi can talk to you about any type of mental illness and help you find informative and trustworthy resources.
Don’t try to “fix” it
When you love someone who is suffering, all you want to do is fix it. We get it. Parents whose children battle mental illness have an especially hard time with this one. But you can’t fix someone else’s mental illness.
Often, the desire to fix the situation comes in the form of talking a lot. You may try to cheer up your depressed friend, or calm down your buddy with anxiety, or talk some sense into your delusional mother, but these tactics fall on deaf ears.
Instead, speak less and listen more. Ask open-ended questions that allow your loved one to rant, rail, or weep if they need to do so. And just listen without judgment and without offering a solution. Simply being heard is tonic for the soul.
Offer spiritual support
Mental health disorders can make people feel isolated and disconnected from loved ones even when they’re nearby and engaged. And if your loved one is a Christian, they may feel like they’re separated from God, too. They may even falsely believe that having a mental illness means their faith isn’t strong enough or their relationship with God is broken.
But the Bible says that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Assure your loved one that God sees them and hears them. Remind them that the Bible is full of people who suffered great mental and emotional anguish, and God was faithful to provide comfort in their times of need.
Pray with and for them — it’s the best way you can support them.
Get professional help
When your loved one is ready to seek professional treatment for their mental health issue, make sure you guide them toward care from an expert who shares their faith and their values. Dr. Kwakuyi is both a pastor and an integrative psychiatric nurse practitioner who offers sound biblical counsel and evidence-based psychotherapy treatments, such as:
If your loved one needs spiritual counseling to cope with daily stress or major mental health issues, encourage them to talk with Dr. Kwakuyi. Call our friendly staff, or request an appointment online.
