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What To Do When Your Help Is Turned Away
Why do patients reject help?
- Denial that they have a problem and/or need help
- Pessimism about effectiveness of treatment
- Impaired insight
- Discomfort with feeling dependent on anyone
- Delusional thinking
- Poor relationships with doctors
- Adverse side effects of medications
- Patients may like some of the symptoms
- Fear being out of control
- Uncertainty about how to obtain services
- Stigma surrounding seeking mental health care
- Finances
Common feelings in caregivers when help
is turned away
frustration
hopelessness
depression
powerlessness
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disappointment
resentment
helplessness
confusion
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Tips for caregivers on coping when help
is rejected
- Remember that you are not responsible for his/her behavior.
- Remind yourself that your loved one is not rejecting you - rather, he/she is having difficulty allowing others to help.
- Seek support for yourself.
- Calmly express your worry and disappointment to your loved one about his/her choices.
- Remind the patient of the availability of others who care and who could be of help (e.g., hotlines, professionals, other family members, friends)
- Remind the patient of how well they were doing (and how proud you were of them) when they were taking their medications and/or participating in treatment in the past.
- Don't give up. Try to be patient.
- Ask if there are any other specific ways in which you could help.
- Remember that mental illness often has ups and downs.
- Remember the 3 C's from Alanon: Cause, Cure and Control:
- You did not cause the mental illness; you cannot cure it; and you cannot control his/her behavior.
Parts adapted from Surviving schizophrenia: A family manual by E.F. Torrey (1998) and What to do when your loved one is depressed by L. Rosen & X. Amador (1996).
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