Four Stages Of Living With Mental Illness

                                                       

When dealing with a family member who has a mental illness, it is really difficult whether it is a sibling, a child, or a spouse. In dealing with mental illness there are four stages you can go through, sometimes it is in order, sometimes it is out of order, and you can revisit these stages at any time. Until you come to familiarize yourself with the stages and the person with mental illness becomes familiar with them, it may seem that you are out of sync with one another. You are pretty much living a dysfunctional life. These four stages came out of NAMI (National Alliance of the Mentally Ill) and they use them to teach families and persons with the mental illness how to recognize what stage they are in. Then they help teach them where the other person is in the cycle. The purpose of this is to help each person know where they are coming from and teach open communication skills.

The stages are sound and each person in the family can be in a different stage, making a big disconnect within the family system. The stages are more complex than what I am going to be presenting here. The first stage is Crisis/Chaos. The identified person may be in the throes of the disease. The family member may be in Crisis to as to what do we do or here we go again and feeling discombobulated. Crisis is: What do we do now? Do we try to fix it? Do we take to fight or take flight? Without a program or supports to help them, this may be very scary to both the identified person and the family.

The second stage is Denial, Grief, and or Anger. The identified person can be in any of these three states-denial that there is anything wrong with them; grief that they have the disease; anger at having the disease and that there is no cure or here we are relapsing again. The family member may be in a state of anger and may take it personally such as why are they doing this to me or here we go again. They may be scared of the process or outcome. Without supports to guide them they feel lost. They may feel nobody understands what I am going through. They may feel they know everything, but feel alone in their plight.

The third stage is Acceptance. The identified individual accepts their disease process and knows what they need to take care of them and have a support system that keeps them in check to let them know when they see signs of relapse. The family may finally accept the illness is like diabetes and needs to be constantly checked. Both the individual and the family accept where they are and they allow each other to be checks and balances for each other, so when the disease rears its head, with support, they know what steps they need to take to get help.

The fourth stage is Advocacy. Advocacy can be at the grassroots level, where identified individuals present to families and community groups their story of strength, hope, and recovery. This may also be done at the county, state, and national level. Families may do the same thing. The next step is supporting legislature for the mentally ill, supporting local and state governments, as well as at the Federal level. There are many ways one can become involved at the Advocacy level and this is where support is needed the most.

For further information you can contact http://www.nami.org. You can find out what is happening in your state and in your chapter in terms of a variety of support groups for family members and peers with a mental illness. There are state conferences that are trying to get the word out about NAMI and provide support for their members and professionals in the community. There is no lack of topics at the conference to catch any ones' eyes. There is an abundant need for help to get the word out.

Article Source: