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.