Caring for Those with Mental Illness and Addiction: Finding Hope and Respite

Much of the focus on mental illness and addiction is rightly placed on the person who is ill.

Much less attention is placed on those that care for that person, or those that are directly affected by their illness. If you are one of those who care for a person who has a mental illness and addictions or who lives with such a person, then this article is for you.

When I lived on PEI, where wakes are an important part of life, I remember going to a wake of a woman who had, after 4 prior attempts, successfully killed herself. To my surprise, it was a happy event. The family, her husband and children, were so relieved. No longer would they live in dread of her killing herself, or suffer through yet another collapse into darkness. Her wake was a celebration of gratitude that her suffering, and theirs, was over.

No matter how awful it is to suffer from mental illness and addictions, it is often sometimes worse to be the spouse, the parent, the sibling or the child of that person. Mental illness, and addictive behaviour, brings chaos and pain to those that are close. A partner can lose sight of their own lives in the care of the other. A well-sibling can be left out by parents whose attention has been consumed by the sibling who is ill. An adult child can lose their livelihood, and so their future, as they devote themselves to their sick parent.

But no matter how awful these circumstances can be, there is hope. The hope is found in respite, a real break from these situations.

We know now that courage and resilience in the face of this kind of extreme stress has a finite limit. At some point, everyone can use this reserve up. What the military discovered a century ago, is that by taking a person out of the combat zone, for a few days, ideally for a few months, can help them restore their reserves and regain a better perspective. What is the nature of such a respite? The vital element is to remove the person from the danger zone. To enable them to go to bed at night, without worrying what might then happen. To know that they are safe.

At Dunham House, we understand this. We are often contacted by a caregiver, or a family member who is in extremis. We can provide your loved one with an ideal environment to help them stabilize, and we can offer you a period where you can take back your own life and recuperate.