This “Don’t Avert Your Eyes” post was inspired by PTSD survivor and awareness advocate Michele Rosenthal. Michele runs the PTSD blog Parasites of the Mind, and recently contributed “What I Wish My Family Had Known” to CarrotOfHope.org, an article that takes a look at the PTSD perspective and how family and friends can interpret behavior and continue to interact.

Learn more about how Joaquin Phoenix prompted this weeklong series, find out what we talked about yesterday, and don’t forget to stop back by – it’s running until Friday, March 27!

Yesterday I gave you some tips on how to address the issue of mental illness with a loved one you think might be dealing with mental health problems and left you with the warning that your concerns might not be….warmly received.

Even if, deep down, a person really believes he might be struggling with a mental illness, the chances that he’ll react negatively to any suggestion you make are pretty high.

Thanks to stigma and this innate drive so many of us have to be “normal,” few people react positively to the suggestion of mental illness (unless, of course, the possibility of mental illness finally answers questions they’ve been asking about themselves for so long – which, indeed, does happen).

As far as negative reactions go, you can expect, and in no particular order, what I’ve dubbed “The Three A’s” – Anger, Apathy, and Avoidance.

Anger

Common sense, right? No matter how delicately you bring the subject up, there is a chance the person is going to get angry. And, sometimes people get angry because the issue has been brought up “delicately” – everyone has their own way of interpreting how another person chooses to address a personal issue, and some people find “delicate” offensive, as if the other person sees them as someone to handle with care. (Take me, for instance – I’ve always been a subscriber to the Give It To Me Straight newsletter, whatever the “news” might be.)

Apathy

Your loved one might try to act as if he doesn’t care – he doesn’t care about his deteriorating mental health, he doesn’t care about your unfounded (or, what he might call your “unfounded”) worries, and maybe even that he doesn’t care about himself.

Avoidance

I briefly touched on this one yesterday, and to me, it’s probably the scariest of the bunch. We humans are pretty good at avoiding people we don’t want to be around, and you can’t very well stalk the person you think might be having a hard time. The longer a person succeeds at avoiding you (and reality), the longer the mental illness (if indeed there is one) goes untreated and unmanaged. And, yes – that’s scary stuff.

Keep in mind that not everyone reacts the same way when a loved one approaches them with concern about their mental health, but these are three pretty common reactions for which you should at least be prepared. And, these reactions are usually culminations of other reactions and emotions – fear, panic, confusion, and shame, for example.

Tomorrow, we’re going to tackle how you can deal with the reactions (another Michele Rosenthal-inspired post), but in the meantime, have you ever brought up the subject of mental illness and been greeted with any of “The Three A’s” in return? How did you handle it? Were there any other reactions you dealt with?

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PMolinero (March 25, 2009)

From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (March 25, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 25 Mar 2009