There are few things as important for a companion or family member in helping a loved one who has a brain illness than having successfully established trust. It is essential. It may even help save a loved one’s life.
When a person is in a depressive state the recommended and necessary tasks of finding a doctor, receiving a correct diagnosis, taking helpful medication, finding an effective therapist and attending the right support group can be insurmountable obstacles for someone in the grips of a serious disease.
Having a strong and supportive companion, family member or caregiver who understands the negative and often defeatist attitudes this illness causes can forestall inaction and minimize or even prevent any worsening of the symptoms. This loving work depends on trust. Without it there are few words, warnings or threats that are going to realistically move a loved one in the direction of eventual meaningful recovery. When an unbreakable bond of trust is in place, a family member or companion can almost always encourage, motivate and move a loved one toward receiving help.
The world is full of people who have allowed themselves to be led to healing, thanks to an unbreakable bond of trust.
It may be one of love’s most vital links.
Isolation should be a concern for a companion, family member or caregiver when a loved one is depressed over an extended period of time. As a loved one becomes increasingly depressed, activity usually lessens and there is a tendency to withdraw from the company of others. He or she may be caught up in pessimistic thoughts about themselves causing crumbling self-esteem. All interest in pleasurable activities slips away as our loved one’s loss of energy causes them not to want to leave the house. They may even have trouble getting out of bed.
Untreated or inadequately treated depression can lead to serious health challenges, further troublesome consequences and potential risks many companions can’t bring themselves to think about. But such risks are all too real, and we need to recognize isolation for the insidious trap it often becomes. Some doctors describe this situation as a race against time.
This is a major challenge for those of us supporting someone with a brain illness. Our loved one isn’t capable of recognizing just how ill they are, much less how dangerous isolation can be. If he or she were suffering from untreated diabetes or cancer, we might be able to persuade them that they either begin treatment for their disease or they’re going to die. The ability to see consequences of behavior may be readily pointed out to someone who eats sugar or smokes cigarettes and we can at least hope for, and possibly expect, behavioral changes. But someone with a brain illness doesn’t recognize the danger, so they don’t do anything about it.
Treatment for a brain illness often must come involuntarily, an uncomfortable process. The bottom line is this: there has to be treatment if our loved one is to survive. If treatment is delayed then our loved one is in an ever present and always increasing danger. Any companion, family member or care provider:
- Who does not recognize, acknowledge and take positive action to help a loved one in untreated depressive isolation, is themselves in denial of reality and facing a terrible and possibly irreparable outcome;
- Who takes action to help their loved one to trust their support team and do the hard work of acceptance, treatment and recovery can not only expect their loved one to survive but to thrive for having successfully done the work.
Medication today is doing more than ever to stabilize sufferers of mood disorders and help them to have happy, functional and productive lives. For a large number of those fortunate enough to successfully manage their symptoms with the help of medicine, the road to recovery has not been an easy one. For many it’s taken months (if not years) for them and their doctors to finally discover just the right combination of medicines to achieve the most favorable results with the least side effects. But all of the time, numerous adjustments and faithful trust they’ve placed in their medical support team has ultimately paid off. This is the great goal the patients, their companions and family members, and the physicians prescribing these medicines have all been working toward: ongoing stability and recovery without relapse.
This is an amazing achievement. Especially in light of all the possible obstacles we meet on the road to recovery that, if we’re not careful, can cause us and our loved one to take our eyes off our goal and lose sight of our direction. When this happens, we can needlessly delay if not entirely derail our rightful recovery.
Here are just a few of those obstacles and why it’s important to overcome them:
- Some allege that the medicines doctors could prescribe for our loved one may cause diabetes or other life-threatening diseases so it’s safer not to take them. Such claims are almost always incorrect and bring about a much more life-threatening situation by inadequately treating a brain illness. This is a concern that must be discussed with the treating physician.
- Psychiatry and psychotropic medicines are destructive to society and should be avoided if not banned altogether. These kinds of charges are usually from science-ignorant cults and have no basis in fact. The closest such critics have ever come to a psychiatrist has been as an actor playing one in a film or on TV. Again, consult your doctor with any concerns you may have.
- Patients who have taken medications in the past may have experienced unpleasant side effects and now refuse psychotropic drugs to treat their illnesses. This is unfortunate as well as short-sighted. New medications are being developed all the time; some do not produce previous negative side effects. Medicines that are now available may not have been around when the previous unpleasantness occurred. Every day is a new day in the world of medicine, and it’s useful and smart to keep all our options open. Try to help your loved one not to permit the past to overshadow decisions that are more wisely made in the present.
Medication isn’t the only treatment tool available to help a loved one recover from a brain illness, but it is a very important one. Many healthy and happy people are alive and in recovery today because of it.
People in an episode of major depression often compare it to something like being in a deep hole, so deep that it’s extremely difficult to climb out of the dark mood they’re in. Left on their own to find their way out of their misery, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Their illness will prevent that from happening. Untreated depression seems to lead in only one direction--downward.
Someone in the clutches of deep depression is not thinking positively. Instead, they are often so down on themselves that they may be convinced that there is nothing they can do to lift them out of their depression. They may even believe that they don’t deserve to feel better, perhaps concluding that they are so broken that nothing can fix them. And, if left on their own, it’s possible nothing will. Clinical depression just doesn’t seem to go away with time. Unfortunately, it often gets worse…much worse. Sometimes, untreated depression can be a killer.
If your loved one is in the pits of deep depression, it may be time for you to give them a boost up. Remember, their illness is not going to go away on its own and it’s possibly going to get worse. Don’t delay. A compassionate companion, family member or caregiver is in the best position to take action if their loved one is going to receive the attention and care they need. Taking appropriate action is what successful companions always do.
Help your loved one climb up and out of the pits of depression, and back into healthy recovery and eventual joy. If you don’t know what to do, find out. There are answers to your questions. Ask them. Do it. Take action now.
