How to understand that a person has gone crazy and what to do if it is your relative or neighbor

For many, the worse thing than death is the loss of reason. In the modern world, especially in large cities, people are susceptible to neuroses and obsessive states. For compatriots whose childhood was in the 1990s, things are even sadder. Their parents, due to the political and economic situation in the country, were under constant stress. This was reflected in the attitude towards children. The result was problems with setting personal boundaries and low self-esteem.

Errors in brain activity threaten complete personality degradation. How do you know if you're going crazy? What are the first signs of a personality disorder? What does an abnormal person look like in modern reality?

Dream

How does a person go crazy? The first sign for a healthy person is loss of sleep. People suffering from mental disorders note the disappearance of sleep as the first and strangest thing. It does not decrease, become alarming or intermittent. It just disappears completely. At the same time, the person feels cheerful, as if everything is in order.

During sleep hours, the brain rests, erases unnecessary information, processes and remembers important information. Without rest, all processes in the brain slow down. A person loses the boundaries between dreams and reality. Deprivation begins. Please note: if you don’t feel like sleeping at all, but good health and vigor have not left you, there is something to think about.

Why you shouldn't ignore the symptoms

Mental illnesses are often not taken seriously, and their manifestations are attributed to a bad mood and a bad streak in life. Perhaps this happens because we do not notice the physical manifestations of the disease. And since a person is outwardly healthy, then everything is fine with him. But mental health is no less important than physical health.

Here are some reasons why you need to take care of your mental health.

Mental disorders weaken the body

They lead to serious consequences How Your Mental Health Affects Your Physical Health, such as:

• high blood pressure;
• heart diseases;
• excessive fullness;
• asthma;
• stomach problems;
• weak immune system;
• premature death.

Mental and physical health are closely linked. They cannot be separated. Just because a person looks healthy doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with them.

The disease ruins relationships with family, friends and colleagues

A person suffering from a mental disorder is likely to avoid social contact and become distant from those with whom he was previously close. The patient is sure that no one understands him, so he withdraws into himself. Stops having fun, communicating with friends, and does not go to work under various pretexts.

In addition, irritable behavior and frequent mood swings are unlikely to please anyone. Because of this, relationships with other people become strained, and quarrels often occur.

This gradually leads to social isolation.

The disorder is life threatening

Mental instability can lead a person to commit suicide. More than 90% of suicides and incomplete attempts are associated with mental illness.

Suicide is the last stage of the disease. It all can start with self-harm and attempts to harm yourself. The word selfharm means “self-harm.” A person cuts and burns the skin, beats off limbs until they are bruised.

But self-harm is not a requirement. If a person wants to die, he can do it quietly and unnoticed.

Self-harm is not an attempt at The truth about self-harm suicide. On the contrary, it is the desire to overcome one’s mental pain and survive. A person commits suicide when it seems to him that nothing can help and relieve his pain.

Fear

Most real patients with schizophrenia have encountered this phenomenon. Fear comes in tides. This phenomenon is also called panic attacks. It is uncontrollable and all-consuming. Covers and keeps for several hours. Often a person cannot even explain what exactly he is afraid of, because he is afraid of everything.

How do you know if you're going crazy? It's scary to be alone or go into the dark. There may be a fear of leaving the apartment or getting out from under the blanket. Any sound causes panic and horror. This is a sign that “the roof has leaked,” and there is a good reason to consult a psychiatrist.

Fear of going crazy. What separates a crazy person from a sane person?

We, immersed in our thoughts and always in a hurry somewhere, try not to notice them, and if we accidentally stumble upon them with our gaze, we hastily look away. And we don’t think about how thin the line is that separates a crazy person from a sane person.

But among other fears, somewhere in the depths of our subconscious lurks the fear of going crazy.

You can go crazy for different reasons, but they all essentially boil down to one thing. A person receives information from the outside world that he is not ready to perceive. Thus, a mother is unable to comprehend the death of her child, a woman cannot forgive her husband’s betrayal, a man witnesses a catastrophe - and the mind cannot stand it, refuses to process the information received, runs away from everything that has been revealed to it.

Madness starts with strange ideas. A person becomes suspicious, often misinterpreting the words and actions of others, as if everyone around him were part of a conspiracy against him. Like a good actor, he hides his thoughts from others, fearing that he will be considered crazy.

One of the criteria for deprivation of intelligence is considered to be non-compliance with the norms, mores and morals of society. But this is the main condition for creative and brilliant people. We would have lived by candlelight for a long time if his contemporaries had considered Edison crazy and locked him in a mental hospital. The scientist refused to recognize day and night and lived, obeying his biological rhythms. He slept during the day, when he was tired, in his office under the table.

Both madmen and great people are characterized by exaggerated sensitivity of character and temporary amnesia. They do not know moderation in anything, they suffer from absent-mindedness, and many of them abuse alcohol. According to psychiatrists, there is complete similarity between madmen during a seizure and geniuses who create their works.

Mozart, for example, suffered from persecution mania and was sure that they wanted to poison him. And the English writer Harrington imagined that thoughts were flying out of his mouth in the form of bees, and he dispersed them with a broom. The French fabulist La Fontaine rushed about the streets for hours and, under the surprised looks of passers-by, gesticulated, stomped his feet and shouted the lines that were being born at the top of his voice.

The brilliant Van Gogh, who cut off his left ear and painted a self-portrait in this form, committed suicide at the age of 37. After his death, 150 medical diagnoses that were given to him during his lifetime were published. Among them are epilepsy, schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, a brain tumor and even digitalis poisoning, which he was treated for mental illness.

Science has little studied the transition from a borderline state to a mental disorder, but such a diagnosis as dementia is well known to it. A person stops thinking adequately, forgets what happened yesterday, blames everyone for his problems and troubles. This is usually characteristic of old people, but is increasingly happening to those who, at an earlier age, reduced their mental activity to zero, limiting themselves to reading a television program and discussing the personal lives of their neighbors.

Young girls can easily list all the children and lovers of celebrities, describe their outfits in detail, but have difficulty remembering the multiplication table. Middle-aged women seriously wage ideological wars on social networks on the Internet, trying to prove something to someone, but after graduating from college they have not read a single book for professional growth. Men, instead of starting a family, create various enclaves and orders on the World Wide Web for the elite, but at the same time they themselves live on credit and travel on public transport.

It is quite difficult to go crazy without a reason, but more often than not the reason is not where one is looking for it. There is no such mind that would just up and leave on its own. There is only a mind that suddenly becomes unnecessary.

Tags: mental health, mind, mental disorder, emotions, fear, madness

Irritability

Sudden aggression is also a sign of possible insanity. Psychosis out of nowhere, outbursts at relatives over trifles or for no reason at all. At the same time, a person may not be aware of the inadequacy of his own behavior. How do you know if you're going crazy? It seems that these are ordinary domestic squabbles, “like everyone else.” Only aggressive attacks become more and more frequent and the reasons become more and more ridiculous. And the person begins to swear more and more sophisticatedly, using profanity. He is unable to control himself at these moments.

Nervous shocks

Can a person go crazy, for example, from losing the meaning of life? This usually happens when he loses someone close, such as a child or parents. In this case, the feelings from the tragedy that have occurred can be so strong that a person cannot feel anything else except pain, grief and devastation. At such moments, many close down, do not pay attention to anything, worry and often try to drown out the pain with alcohol. If this condition drags on, depression and psychological breakdowns may occur. In addition, when a person cannot cope with emotions and does not receive psychological help or the support of close friends or relatives, he may develop suicidal thoughts.

Thoughts

Beginning mentally ill people are characterized by an uncontrollable flow of thoughts. There are several development options here:

1. The brain clings to some thought and actively “thinks” it. A person is constantly focused on the same thing. For example, on a carpet on the wall. He thinks about what patterns are on it, what color it is, and so on. The brain can cling to a specific person and think about him constantly. With a mental disorder, a person forgets at this moment about what he was doing before the sudden thoughtfulness appeared. Being fixated on the same subject for a long time and the inability to switch attention is another bell and a reason to think about your own adequacy.

2. Absence of any thoughts. Absolute emptiness. I don’t want to remember anything, do anything, dream about anything. Time seems to stop and flow very slowly. A person is in a vacuum of his own consciousness.

3. No focus. The thought does not linger in the head. Consciousness jumps from one object to another, which makes a person very tired. It is impossible to control the process and concentrate too.

What symptoms should alert you

Each mental illness has its own symptoms. It is not possible to accurately determine the disorder on your own; only a psychotherapist or psychiatrist can make a diagnosis. But there are several common symptoms of What is mental health? , which indicate that a person has mental health problems.

Here are signs that your loved one may be sick:

• Lost interest in work, study, hobbies.
• Sleeps too much or, conversely, suffers from insomnia.
• He is overly emotional, behaves unusually: he has become irritable, withdrawn, and cries over trifles.
• Apathetic, he doesn't care about anything.
• He started drinking alcohol or drugs, smoking, although he had no bad habits before.
• His mood changes very quickly. He may laugh and then cry or get angry a minute later.
• He eats little and refuses to eat.
• Sensitive to smells, sounds and touches, they irritate him.
• Cannot concentrate, thoughts and words are confused, there is no logic in the conversation.
• He talks about death and suicide, about how tired he is of life.

If you notice one or more signs in someone close to you, try to help.

Physical state

At the moment a person is immersed in one of the states described above, sweating is observed. My hands are getting cold, my temples are pounding. Symptoms are also observed in those who have a tendency towards manic attachment to something. So, when performing some action, for example, while playing a computer game, you begin to shake or your hands shake and cold sweat appears. Everything inside freezes, and the surrounding reality disappears - this is a symptom of an obvious psychological crisis. The help of a psychiatrist is needed.

Control

The main thing that distinguishes, for example, a psychic and a madman is the ability to influence their state. How do you know if you're going crazy? If a person with psychic abilities deliberately puts himself into a state of hypnosis or trance, then the madman has no power over his behavior.

A person with superpowers is able to both enter and exit a trance. At the same time, he retains the ability to think during the process and not give in to panic after leaving hypnosis. A person with an early stage of mental disorder does not control his own behavior. Often attacks take him by surprise, and he can cause damage to those around him. It comes out of a crisis as suddenly as it fell into it. In this case, emotional consequences of attacks are likely. A person panics over what happened to him and does not understand what to do next.

How to understand that a person has gone crazy and what to do if it is your relative or neighbor

Considering that recently, medical experts have been seriously concerned about the increase in mental disorders among the population, SP asked the question: is it possible to somehow understand that, for example, a neighbor next door has begun to have similar problems that can lead to dangerous consequences for others? And where can you turn in this case to prevent trouble?

There are indeed signs that indicate that a person is suffering from mental illness.

Sofya Shemyakina, a psychiatrist-psychotherapist at the capital's State Budgetary Healthcare Institution "Psychiatric Hospital No. 14", agrees.

Firstly,

this is a sharp expansion of the circle of acquaintances, even bringing people home from the street. Or, conversely, a sharp limitation of contacts, suspicion, unsociability, outbursts of unmotivated aggression, cruelty, collecting rubbish or throwing out necessary things from the house. This also includes attempts to listen to non-existent voices or take a closer look at non-existent images, sudden religiosity or sectarianism, refusal of food, water, reluctance to perform hygiene procedures or, conversely, increased cleanliness, ritual actions.

Secondly,

the expert states that this is an unreasonable decrease or increase in mood. That is, either indifference to everything, or a sharp interest in something, a long stay in euphoria. A person may make suicidal statements in the spirit of “if only I were gone, if only I fell asleep and didn’t wake up.” Vulgar behavior or increased sexual desire may appear, and a sharp tendency toward crude humor may arise. The appearance may change, and the person either does not give explanations for these changes, or they may be absurd in essence.

Third,

the person begins to express ideas of persecution, jealousy, poisoning, ideas of damage. He may begin to talk about his connection with great people, he may become interested in designing a perpetual motion machine, a system for organizing the world, or something else, and the activity will be of an unproductive nature. Speech may change: it will be accelerated or slowed down, and the meaning of what was said may not be clear. There are jumps from thought to thought, repetition of the same words, made-up and pretentious words in speech. A person may not recognize himself in the mirror, mistake strangers for acquaintances or acquaintances for previously unknown people.

There may be sensations of changes in body shape, the presence of insects or other creatures in the organs or under the skin. It happens that patients with mental disorders visit specialists in therapeutic, neurological, surgical, gynecological, dermatological or dental departments with complaints of pain, itching and burning, but the cause turns out to be a mental illness.

Fourthly,

increased drowsiness occurs or, conversely, a sharp decrease in the amount of sleep to 2-3 hours a day. Fifthly, memory impairments occur: not only what happened a long time ago is forgotten, but also what happened quite recently. A person may not recognize relatives, confuse them with already deceased relatives, may get lost in the yard, forget to turn off the gas and water, and get confused in the apartment.

“But one cannot equate the presence of a mental illness with a danger to society,” Shemyakina emphasizes. “This is precisely one of the stigmas (in medicine, a negative association of a person with something shameful - author), due to which people are forced to hide their suffering from everyone for a long time, otherwise many will begin to be wary of contact with them.

If there are signs

, she develops the idea, it’s worth contacting a psychiatrist. If the patient himself wishes to come for an appointment, then he can contact either a government doctor at a psychoneurological dispensary or a private clinic. But if the sufferer does not realize his illness and considers himself healthy, then, most likely, we will talk about an involuntary examination, which is usually not carried out in private clinics. Such an examination is carried out exclusively at the request of relatives or other persons in contact with the patient. But, according to the expert, there is one obstacle:

— Sometimes relatives or neighbors do not want to write an application for examination of a person suffering from a mental disorder for various reasons. As a result, they leave the person without help and themselves in potential danger. If the application is written, then the psychiatrist examines it, waits for the court's permission to examine, after which he examines the person and makes a decision on measures of assistance. If a psychotic state has developed right before people’s eyes, then they need to call an ambulance and describe what they saw. Then the call can be immediately forwarded to the emergency psychiatric care team.

"SP":

— Can modern medicine diagnose possible mental problems in early childhood or even during pregnancy? What medical measures can be used in this case?

— Mental illnesses are not genetic or congenital, so they cannot be diagnosed during pregnancy. In the future, the pace of mental, social and motor development of children is monitored. If they are violated, as well as if any oddities, isolation, rituals, cruel behavior, or recurring fears appear in the child’s behavior, you should contact a child psychiatrist and neurologist. They will help you understand what changes in development and behavior are associated with: neurological pathology, a reaction to some events, or mental illness. This will determine the tactics of further treatment and the need for additional examinations.

"SP":

— How effectively can the modern medical care system respond in this case?

— The modern system of psychiatric care responds quite effectively to cases of initial treatment and the occurrence of psychotic reactions. These include emergency teams and hospitalization. Again, all this is possible if the person has a condition that requires hospitalization, and if an involuntary examination is necessary, if there is a statement from witnesses of the person’s changed condition and court permission for the examination. Because a psychiatrist is not Batman, who flies around the city at night, looks for patients and personally hospitalizes them in a hospital bed.

"SP":

— Is there a guarantee that doctors will promptly protect society from a violently insane or socially dangerous patient? Can the doctor now take any preventive measures to isolate such a patient from society or in some other way protect him?

— There are guarantees in accordance with the Psychiatric Care Law. The patient will be examined and prescribed a set of medical measures either upon self-referral or after a statement from the outside describing the situation and if there are signs in the patient’s condition that fall under paragraphs “a”, “b”, “c” of Articles 4 and 24. Sometimes a situation occurs, that the patient is examined involuntarily and hospitalized in a hospital involuntarily in accordance with Article 29, but the judge, who gets acquainted with the medical documentation and the opinion of the doctors, decides to stop hospitalizing the patient after talking with him, as well as with his relatives. In this case, doctors immediately stop hospitalization and discharge the patient from the hospital.

"SP":

— How effective is the current system for treating mentally ill people?

— Healthcare is currently being restructured. Including psychiatry. The number of hospital beds and the number of days of stay have been reduced. The entire emphasis is on outpatient services, home hospitals and day hospitals. Unfortunately, there are not always enough doctors; they often work under increased workload. And salaries are by no means as high as they report from the stands. Nevertheless, cases of initial treatment and changes in the patient’s condition have always been a priority for psychiatrists.

There is another side, which, unfortunately, also affects the condition of our patients - this is the economic and social situation, as well as psychological comfort in the family. Relatives of our patients sometimes do not want to monitor the patient’s condition after discharge or monitor medication intake, and contact the attending physician not when he calls them to a psychoeducation group, but when the patient’s condition has changed dramatically due to the lack of adequate medicinal and psychological support. Sometimes relatives of patients also become alcoholics, which also does not improve the treatment and rehabilitation process after discharge.

"SP":

— What, in your opinion, can and should be corrected in modern legislation so that tragedies like the Izhevsk one do not happen again?

“Tragedies will continue to happen as long as society labels mentally ill people as dangerous or inferior. This significantly reduces the percentage of people turning to a psychiatrist for adequate help, but increases visits to fortune-tellers, shamans, and sorcerers.

Tragedies will continue to occur until relatives begin to share responsibility for the condition of a relative who is undergoing maintenance therapy at home, and not blame it on the doctor in a dispensary or hospital, because the mental state is determined not only by the concentration of the drug in the blood, but also by the absence of alcohol, drugs, conflicts at home.

In the legislation itself, the points relating to the examination, hospitalization and discharge of patients are spelled out very clearly. Doctors carry them out, and some of the points require not just a single decision, but the verdict of a commission of three psychiatrists. And this is done strictly.

What is not in the “Law on Psychological Assistance” is addressing the safety issues of the doctor himself, who goes for an examination, examines a patient in a dispensary, or is in the same room with him. There are no alarm buttons, no orderlies, no police squad to help if the patient becomes aggressive. Almost every psychiatrist has experienced the danger of life from an agitated and aggressive patient.

Now doctors are doing everything to reduce the stigma of mental illness. There are modern medications and rehabilitation programs. This is not available everywhere, but again it is related to health care funding and especially to psychiatry funding, which is often allocated money on a residual basis. This is not high-tech help, not nanotechnology, despite the fact that psychiatric drugs and rehabilitation itself are very expensive.

Of course, it is necessary to expand the outpatient service and organize psychiatric reception rooms in clinics. At the same time, our patients require jobs, possibly occupational therapy workshops. Now, unfortunately, they have been abolished, but at one time they helped our patients live an active life and earn not extra money.

https://svpressa.ru/authors/and…

Hallucinations

This symptom is the surest way to determine that it is time to see a doctor. Hallucinations come in different types of perception:

1. Auditory. Almost all patients in a psychiatric clinic hear extraneous voices in their heads. It can be absolutely anyone. In a normal person, only the inner self sounds in his head. This is a common phenomenon; while thinking, we talk to ourselves. There is no pathology in this.

How do you know if you're going crazy? It's sad when an outside voice starts giving advice or conducting dialogue. It happens that animals or objects begin to talk. Here you should be wary and urgently undergo an examination.

2. Visual. People with mental disorders are more likely to experience creepy hallucinations. The appearance of devils and living creatures from walls and windows is a standard phenomenon for this type of disease. Naturally, this is terrifying, but there are also beautiful hallucinations. Colorful trees, flying animals. You should also not get carried away with the spectacular spectacle; the doctor will help you get rid of them.

3. Tactile. The sick person feels as if someone is touching him. Pulling hair or limbs. It is common for a person with a mental disorder to feel dirty or dirty. How can you tell if a person is going crazy? Endless hand washing, rubbing the skin until it bleeds, or scratching the skin are clear signs of an incipient nervous system disease.

From psychic to schizophrenic - one step

Dmitry Voedilov, psychologist, specialist in neurolinguistic programming, author of books on NLP, says

— Of course, mental illness can manifest itself in a variety of disorders and oddities in behavior, but the most important thing is uncontrollable hallucinations. What could it be? For example:

1) You begin to hear voices that you cannot stop. Let's say there is no one in the room, and you are sure that someone is contacting you, pestering you, and you cannot do anything about it. It doesn't depend on you.

2) Visions begin that you also cannot control. This is similar to the state of a person who has eaten poisonous hallucinogenic mushrooms, which he may unknowingly mistake for edible.

3) The feeling of anxiety and fear does not leave you. For example, a person thinks that the world will end soon, that someone is chasing him, etc.

Article on the topic

Don't miss the beast. Is it possible to recognize abnormal people without a psychiatrist?

What is the difference between a schizophrenic and a psychic? The psychic enters an altered state of consciousness consciously: he entered, soared above the ground or heard spirits, then came out of the trance, came to his senses... He clearly controlled that the session was over and stopped hallucinations. The same applies to their clients who come for a hypnosis session: after its completion, they need to make sure that the person is here and now. That he is not a bird or a creature with two heads, but a normal person. In the same way, when we wake up, we understand what was a dream, what is happening in reality. Our mind controls it. So, the most important criterion that helps to understand whether a person has gone crazy or not: whether he can, by his decision, by his will, stop hallucinations (they can be anything - auditory, gustatory and others, that is, affecting all organs of perception). By the way, one who has achieved mastery of meditation can even control his visions. If this system is no longer controlled by you, you should not be embarrassed to go to a psychiatrist as quickly as possible. Uncontrollable hallucinations are a disorder of brain biochemistry. Such a person needs to take certain medications.

Distorting reality. Top 5 rare mental diseases

More details

Apathy

Everyone feels sad sometimes; a crisis may occur due to life circumstances. How do you know when you're starting to go crazy? If you become self-absorbed and don’t leave the house, eat or drink water, this is a symptom of a personality disorder. The condition is provoked by global changes in life: the death of a loved one, divorce, collapse of hopes. As a rule, apathy is followed by loss of sleep. If this is exactly what happened, there is a reason to visit a specialist.

Sometimes depression comes out of nowhere. Everything is fine in the family, and life is smooth, but the state of sadness and melancholy does not go away. A person cannot cope with it on his own; loved ones can help.

Age

Have you noticed that some older people sometimes say or do strange things? In critical conditions, it may seem that a person has gone crazy. However, this is not quite true. Why do old people go crazy? One of the common diseases encountered in old age is dementia. In other words, it is called senile dementia.

There are many different forms of this disease, and each of them has specific causes. The most common types of dementia are the following disorders:

On the subject: Pasta with carbonara sauce: ingredients, recipe, cooking tips

• Alzheimer's disease (“senile insanity”). It is characterized by the death of brain neurons, which primarily leads to memory impairment.
• Vascular dementia. It most often occurs in people with high blood pressure, diabetes, smokers and those who have had several strokes. Each attack leads to a deterioration in the patient’s neurological condition. As it progresses, memory and thinking deterioration, gait disturbance, muscle weakness, emotional instability, and depression may occur.
• Dementia with Lewy bodies is a disease in which cognitive impairment is combined with motor impairment. A distinctive and specific symptom is visuospatial disturbances. For example, blurred vision, hallucinations, difficulty recognizing objects.
• Huntington's (or Huntington's) disease. Clinical symptoms include the appearance of mental disorders (depression, apathy, schizophrenia-like disorders), nervous tics, seizures, strange gait, impaired swallowing, etc.
• Korsakoff psychosis is most often observed in patients with alcoholism. They experience memory impairment, paralysis, muscle atrophy, and decreased intelligence.

Why do older people go crazy? Dementia can happen to anyone, but is more common after age 65. Early signs of the disease are very subtle and vague and may not be immediately obvious. Some common symptoms include:

• progressive memory loss;
• personality change;
• apathy;
• loss of ability to perform daily tasks.

Mania

The state of manic disorder is fraught with danger to others. Delusions of grandeur: safe, there are inflated demands on others in relation to oneself. The demand for worship or the indisputability of one's own genius. Considering modern realities, this feeling is common to many. The costs of post-Soviet upbringing, when children's permissiveness and impunity grew into a sense of their own exclusivity and excessive importance. The border between adequate and manic states is very weak. How do you know if you're crazy? It is important to control self-esteem and not transfer it to an inadequate state.

The phenomenon of persecution mania is widespread. A person with the initial stage of the disease feels like he is being watched. He tries to hide from prying eyes, hides and avoids society. At home, he feels like someone is watching him.

It also appears in relation to other people. The person himself becomes a persecutor. “Catches” another on the street, watches from the side and interferes in private life. Pursues people with certain common traits. This is how classic maniacs behave, there is an urgent reason to consult a psychiatrist.

How to help a loved one

Support

First of all, you need to talk to him and discuss the problem. But be careful - think carefully about the dialogue before you begin. A person can interpret any of your phrases incorrectly.

Here's how you can encourage someone:

• Tell him you love him and want to help.
• Take care of him: cook breakfast, take him to the cinema, buy a small gift. Little things like that are very important.
• If a loved one suspects that they are sick and feel inferior because of this, tell them that illness does not make them a bad person.
• Offer your help and ask what he needs. The needs of a person with a mental disorder may be different from yours. It’s better to clarify so as not to make things worse.
• Listen carefully. Sharing your feelings is more important than receiving advice and guidance.
• Treat the patient's condition with understanding. He may act strange, snap at you, and be rude. Don't be mad at him. Remember that these actions are dictated by illness.

Consult a doctor

You won't force someone to get treatment, but you can push them towards this decision. Offer to see a doctor or go to the hospital together.

If your loved one refuses and says that he is not sick, try to convince him that the examination will not harm him in any way, but will calm you down. Patients who are able to make decisions independently and are not dangerous to society are not forcibly hospitalized by the Law of the Russian Federation of July 2, 1992 No. 3185-1 (as amended on July 19, 2018) “On psychiatric care and guarantees of the rights of citizens during its provision.”

If you don’t know where to start examination and treatment, consult a therapist. He will write out a referral to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist and tell you how to behave at the appointment.

Important: if you attempt suicide or harm other people, urgent hospitalization is required. Take the person to the hospital or call an ambulance immediately.

Study the disease

It's hard to help someone when you don't know what you're up against. To better understand your loved one's feelings, find information about their illness, read research, and visit support groups on social networks and forums.

For example:

• Psysovet - here you can get psychological help for free, read the stories of other people and answers from specialists.
• Psychological forum PsycheForum - there are a lot of topics about various life problems and mental illnesses. You can chat with participants, create your own topic, and get help from psychologists online.
• Depreccii.net is a portal with articles and recommendations, as well as successful stories of depression treatment.
• “Bipolar Association” - everything about bipolar disorder: articles, personal experience, literature, films.

Help myself

Sometimes those who are close to the patient also need psychological help, because living with a mentally ill person is stressful. A specialist will help you cope with fears and negative emotions.

Recommendations

To avoid the manifestation of inadequate brain reactions to what is happening around you, you need to train it. Periodic changes in activity, rest and new experiences are a lifeline for a workaholic.

If a person, due to circumstances, does not work or is lonely, he needs to find a hobby. Get a pet or do charity work. Helping others will distract you from focusing on your own personality and relieve brain activity. If there is a sudden manifestation of “extrasensory” abilities or uncontrollable conditions, you must immediately consult a doctor.

What not to do

Understanding a mentally ill person is difficult. Therefore, even with good intentions you need to be careful. He can be offended by any little thing that he would not normally pay attention to.

Here is a list of what not to do:

• To impose. Offer your help, but don't push. If you see that a person is annoyed by this, do not insist.
• Criticize and condemn. Even if you don’t like the actions and decisions of your loved one, respect his choice. If his actions affect other family members, the decision must be made jointly - let everyone speak out.
• Devalue feelings and emotions. You cannot say that his illness is not serious or that he is making everything up.
• Pretend you don't notice anything. Denying a problem won't make it go away.
• Kibitz. It is better to listen to the person and ask how you can help him. Advice can only be given when you are asked for it.

In conversation, avoid How to Help a Loved One With Depression the following phrases:

• “Everyone gets sad, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
• “It's all just in your head. Just stop thinking about the bad.”
• “Don’t dwell on the negative.”
• "Be more positive."
• “Why aren’t you feeling better?”
• "There's always something wrong with you."
• “You just need to find a job (significant other, hobby).”

Your attention and support are really important to those who are sick. Try to be patient and understanding.