There is increasing awareness and dialogue about mental health, and this is important for people to understand that they are not alone with their mental health concerns. But what can you do as an individual to support others suffering from mental health issues?
Around one in five adults in the United States has a mental health illness, which equates to more than 50 million people. It is likely there are even more people who have undiagnosed mental health issues. Broadly speaking, mental health refers to emotional, social and psychological wellbeing. The state of an individual’s mental health affects the way they feel and think, and how they behave. Mental health also has implications on how a person interacts with others, handles stressful situations, and it also impacts the kind of choices they make.
If you haven’t suffered from a mental health issue yourself, or if you feel like you don’t know much about mental health issues, it can be difficult to know how to be supportive towards people suffering from mental health problems. Sometimes you don’t know what the right or wrong thing to say is, or if there is something specific you could do to help. Here are some tangible ways you could help to advocate for people suffering from mental health problems.
Spot the Signs
One of the ways you can be supportive towards people who have mental health issues is to know what the signs are that indicate they may be suffering. Sometimes a person won’t realize they are suffering from a mental health problem. Or if they do have a known mental health issue, they may go through peaks and troughs of feeling better or worse. If you can spot the signs that a loved one might be going through a low point, you are in a better position to be able to help.
Many individuals have different signs of suffering from their mental health challenges, so the first thing to do is to know a particular person’s response. Typical signs can include distancing themselves from people or activities they usually enjoy, having low energy, or experiencing mood swings. Changes to eating and drinking habits, being argumentative, or being less able to do everyday tasks can also be signs.
Understand How to Talk
The way you talk to sufferers about mental health is hugely important, and using the right kind of language goes a long way towards helping people. Letting the person lead a conversation and allowing them to share as much or as little as they want to is crucial. Try to speak to them when you are not likely to be interrupted or face distractions. Ask open questions rather than closed ones to encourage them to talk. So instead of saying: “Are you feeling low?” say: “Do you want to tell me how you’re feeling?”
Never put words into the person’s mouth, and don’t try to diagnose or solve their problems. Let them talk, and see if they can come up with some of their own solutions, whether it is seeking help or doing an activity that makes them feel happy and relaxed. Overall, be a good listener. And if you do think the person would benefit from some professional intervention, offer to help them seek help or another kind of support, while avoiding telling them what to do.
Know the Resources
If you want to support others with their mental health, it is a good idea to know what resources are out there. Whether it is support groups, or local exercise clubs that would help someone de-stress, try to educate yourself a little about what information and advice is in place. There are many websites and charities that produce excellent resources for people with mental health problems. Accessibility of information is important—if you’re a service provider, consider using a free QR code generator to directs people to online resources, to make it quick and easy for patients to access information.
Other Ways to Help
Many people want to become better at supporting people with mental health issues because they know someone who is suffering. In fact, many people around us may be suffering, but we won’t necessarily know about it. Being mindful of the right language and the resources out there will probably be useful to you in more ways than one in the future.
If you find you want to do even more to help people with mental health problems, you could also consider volunteering for a local organisation or charity. This could be anything from a mental health charity to befriending schemes for vulnerable people. You could also support any local or national movements to make mental health services more of a priority.
There are even careers for people to work as professional mental health advocates, so check out what training and need to do if this sounds interesting to you. In everyday life, you can learn to correct anyone who uses language that is unsupportive of people suffering from mental health problems.