Supporting Someone through Mental Health Struggles

Support from family and friends is significantly helpful for someone experiencing mental health struggles. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy for the friends and family or the person struggling to know what support is needed.

SO, WHAT DOES SUPPORT REALLY MEAN?

When you look at the definition it says: Support (verb) bear all or part of the weight; hold up. Okay – so most definitions relate to physical support for buildings. But, this definition does make sense for human connection as well.

Mental health struggles can feel like the weight of the world is on someone’s shoulders. Not only this, but the problems are taking place in their brain – which they can’t switch off or mute. To put it simply, mental health problems can be completely overwhelming.

This is why tasks that seem simple – like washing your hair, doing the laundry and eating – can be almost impossible some days. But what if you were able to bear some of that weight and help hold the person up emotionally? Like a building frame, the more support, the stronger and more able to endure the weight the building is, so too will the person be able to carry the weight of their mental health.

Supporting someone through mental health can look different. But there are two non-negotiables that come with being supportive:

1) Listening without judgment.

2) Letting them survive and recover in a way that they feel is best, not what you’ve googled or what works for you when you’re down in the dumps.

It can look like:

• Asking if they’d like you to do their laundry folding with them

• Sitting with them while they binge their favourite films

• Offering to cook dinner with them after work

• Being with them without ‘doing anything’

• Offering to drive them to counselling appointments

• Understanding if they are delayed responding to texts or calls

• Not pushing them to talk about what’s going on or how they feel.