The Importance of Friends When Living with Mental Illness

Here's what's happening at HealthyPlace:

• The Difficulty of Maintaining Friendships and Importance of Having Friends When You Live With A Mental Illness
• From HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• The Fear of Being A Caregiver

The Difficulty of Maintaining Friendships and Importance of Having Friends When You Live With A Mental Illness

This week, Theresa Fung, author of The Unlocked Life blog talks about evaluating friendships and the warning signs you're in a relationship with someone who is sucking the emotional life out of you. Her article got me thinking about the importance of having friends, especially when living with a mental illness.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy subject to tackle. Isolation, wanting to be alone, is a key component of having a mental illness. On the other side, most people find it extremely difficult to maintain a friendship with someone who has a long-term mental illness and the associated difficulties that go along with that. Breaking Bipolar blogger, Natasha Tracy addresses that in her article "Bipolar As Love Thief."

Finding good friends and building close friendships takes time and energy. If you're not quite up to that, I have another idea. A common thread of most emails we get on this subject is this: "No one understands what I'm going through." Since relationships are built on common experiences, a real-life support group may be extremely helpful to you. Not only do you get out on a regular basis and interact with other people, which is very important to your recovery, but you're with people who do "get it."

Mental Health Support Groups

• Mental Health America
• Depression Bipolar Support Alliance
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
• Anxiety Disorders Association of America
• International OCD Foundation
• CHADD (ADHD)

Building Friendships

• How Do You Make Friends with Someone?
• What Does It Take to Make New Friends?
• How to Help Your ADHD Child Make Friends
• Boundaries for Helping a Friend
• What If I'm Too Sick To Make Friends
• Are You Lonely?
• Loneliness and What To Do About Loneliness

From HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

Your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Decoding Drug Information: Seroquel Adverse Reactions (Final Part) 
• Stress Busters: 22 Ways To Be Kind To Yourself 
• Unintentional ADHD Intensity: A Heavy Tale of Woe 
• Parents of Mentally Ill Children Have a Long and Difficult Journey 
• From Trauma to DID: The Sensitivity Factor 
• Assessing Our Friendships 
• Video: Thoughts on the First Day of School
• Understanding Anxiety: Map Your Mind and Break Free
• Decoding Drug Information: Seroquel Adverse Reactions (end of 3-part series)
• Psych Meds For Children: Finding Right Regimen Isn't Easy
• ADHD and the To-Do Remix

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

The Fear of Being A Caregiver

A few months ago, writer Michele Howe was our guest on the HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show, where she discussed how to meet life's challenges. Michele had suffered through a long period of serious depression following elective shoulder surgery. When she finally recovered, she spoke to other women who battled life's challenges successfully to find out how they made it through. Those stories became the basis of her book: "Burdens Do A Body Good."

One of life's challenges, some may even consider it a burden, is being a caregiver for a loved one with a mental or physical illness. It's a daunting task and for those of us looking down the road to the possibility of being a caregiver, it can evoke some scary or troubling thoughts. In an article for HealthyPlace, Dispelling the Fear of Care-Giving, Michele provides tips and information for people that need to care for a loved one with a mental or physical condition and how to take care of someone without forgetting to take care of yourself.