What can you do?

As the mentally ill person

Accept

A first step for improvement is the simple acceptance of the mental illness. With it comes the appreciation that mental illnesses are a part of many people’s lives and that the causes leading to those illnesses are scientifically studied and increasingly understood. It is further important to acknowledge that people suffering from mental diseases can in no way be blamed for this. Mental illnesses have a high impact on personal wellbeing, physical health and, thus, on the ability to manage our everyday life. It is, therefore, important to take it as seriously as a physical illness and to care for it.

Get informed

The more you know about the illness, its causes, symptoms, situations that trigger them and helpful strategies and recources the better it is. Being on this website you have already started learning more about getting curious. Perfect, this curiosity is exactly what you need on your way to handle your mental illness. Don’t stop here. Try to explore it even more. What could have triggered your symptoms, both, in your past and present? Are there situations that are specifically critical? What makes you feel better? Answering those questions might be easier after having some basic knowlede on the mental disease. The links on the bottom of this webpage will help you finding further information.

Get in contact with others

In a next step it might be helpful to get in contact with others being in a similar situation. Talking to others can help in two ways: First, the experience that one is not the only one, that others have the same experiences and struggles builds up the self-worth and reduces stigmatisation. Second, dialog with other people facing similar difficulties will provide valuable knowledge on how others dealt with specific situations and, thus, on helpful coping strategies.

For this purpose, you can use our open discussion forum for feedback or general questions or comments on mental health. Take part in a group if you are looking for a specific community. You can either use it to be part of a predefined group or to get directly in contact with another member. If none of the predefined groups seem appropriate you can also create your own group. Otherwise, there is also a wide variety of Facebook forums. You can find a couple of them following the following links:

Building and strengthening coping resources

Dealing with a mental illness depends vastly on available coping resources. Some of them are innate or learned in early childhood, such as your stress resistance, whereas others are determined by the conditions you live in (e.g. financial resources or early education). But we don’t have to rely only on those resources that are given to us. Resources can also be built and strengthened over time. The capacity to relax when you are stressed or afraid, to control impulsive emotions, to re-evaluate thoughts and feelings or to create a supportive social network around you can all be extremely valuable for the process to deal with a mental illness. So why not training some of those?

Find professional psychological help

Depending on the severity of the suffering you might want to find professional help and advice. Most psychological illnesses can be well treated with psychotherapy. The links in the section below list professional psychotherapists currently working in Cameroon.

Give us feedback

We are only able to improve this website with your help. By reporting back to us, we can account for the needs of mentally ill people in Cameroon and adjust the website accordingly. Was the information provided on this website helpful? Is there any important information missing? What struggles do you have in your everyday life and what resources do you need to deal with them? The more information we have the more we will be able to implement appropriate projects. Just send us an email or a message using the contact form.

As a close relative

Family members and generally the close environment of the mentally ill person have a crucial impact on the person’s wellbeing and the development of the illness. Thus, the power of close relatives on the mental illness is not to underestimate. Generally, someone who truly loves and cares for you is one of the most helping factors for a good development of someone else’s mental illness. Doing this already helps your relative a lot!

It is, furthermore, important to be well informed about the respective mental illness, to know as much as possible about the symptoms, environmental triggers and the appropriate handling of complicated situations. In a next step you can try to anticipate problematic situations and help the person developing respective coping strategies. Not only does it help the person concerned but also you as the close contact person to deal with sometimes challenging social interactions. It might also help to know that socially hurting behaviour is not necessarily hurting you on purpose but that it is rather part of the mental disease. This knowledge might help you put your relative’s behaviour into perspective.

Reactions from society to a mentally ill person can sometimes be very painful, all the more when others are not aware of a certain mental disease. The most effective way to reduce such reactions is to talk to people, to let them know as much as possible about the illness and, thus, to educate them. The more they know the less they will be afraid of it.

In short

  1. Inform yourself about the mental illness and put hurting behaviour from your mentally ill relative into that perspective.
  2. Anticipate difficult situations with your mentally ill relative or friend.
  3. Help your relative or friend to seek support.
  4. Try different coping recourses for yourself (you might even find out how to help the person concerned to further develop coping strategies for him or her).
  5. Talk to others. Living with and caring for a mentally ill person can be tough and it might be helpful to exchange experiences with other families in similar situations. Feel free to use our open discussion forum or our group section for this purpose.
  6. Raise awareness. Let people know as much as possible about the mental disease and they will generally start to be much more understanding. Why? Because things we don’t know tend to scare us, whereas being familiar with something helps us anticipating and understanding them. And, thus, we are less likely to reject them.
  7. Report back to us by sending us an email or by using our contact form. Tell us about everyday life struggles and how you deal with it. What was helpful and what information was missing. How can we improve our website and what other support would you generally need?

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