Every day of our lives we see lots of people. Each and every single person we cross paths with influences our thoughts and behaviors. Yet, the people who are our near and dears they play a tremendously important role in our lives. A good social group can lead to improved self-esteem and better ability to cope up or deal with stress.

At times of any kind of bad phase in life, the immediate person we turn to is either someone in the family or a close friend. These are the closest people to us or the immediate support and guidance one has! Having such people around us who understand and support us can improve our mental health. It also helps us recover more rapidly from mental illness. In fact everyone should be more understanding towards people with mental health issues. Nevertheless, our words and actions influence them in various ways!

Some of those impacts are as follows:

• It reduces Stigma; like when we start accepting people who have mental health issues. People often feel ashamed of themselves and their illness. Many suffer in silence and not tell anyone about their problems.
• It makes one feel secure; as in it gives us the freedom to express ourselves. People feel anxious and think as if they are alone in this and that no one would understand what they are going through.
• It provides opportunities for feedback; for a better understanding. It gives them a chance to speak or open up about their thoughts.
• Your support gives them hope and motivates them in a positive way; makes us believe in our own self. People tend to recover rapidly when motivated enough to do so.
• You can help them prevent a relapse; prevent the person from failing into that trap. All one requires in this state is understanding and support which could help them stay put.

Conclusively, like discussed earlier having a great social group plays an important role in a faster recovery of people having mental health issues. We should do our utmost to create an environment that is accepting of all people and facilitates healing. Treatment can help one to start to re-engage with positive things in life.

Note to self–Remember, family and friends are equally impacted by their loved ones mental health issues. A strong support network is crucial for all individual involved. So don’t forget that as a carer you are likely to be under stress, as:

• Depression and hopelessness have a reason to affect you in this situation.
• Therapy can release difficult thoughts and emotions in your case as well.

Part of caring is to care for yourself, as in order to take care of others one needs to be healthy mentally and physically both. Taking the time to care about yourself would help you prevent physical rundowns and allow you to deal with the thoughts, emotions and stress that could associate with taking care of someone with mental health issues.