“The Lonely World Of Living With Anxiety And Emotional Distress Becomes Even Lonelier When Others Don’t Understand.”

Mental Health Challenges With that quote said though, let me create some deeper understanding here; this blog post isn’t meant to have you repress your emotional state even deeper within. To live in a world of learned hopelessness and victimization, no. This post is meant to open up your eyes to your vast capabilities and potential so relying on others becomes unnecessary in time.

The pain/pleasure principle is deep at work here

Your friends and family members are always unconsciously weighing the potential pains of trying to understand your challenges (such as how much time will be spent, personal commitments, investment, etc) vs pleasures (what they may gain). If the pain of trying to understand your mental health challenges comes at too great a cost for them, they’ll revert back to their regular automated responses such as ‘you have to learn to relax’ or ‘it’s not worth worrying over.’

A truly commited friend or family member understands the limits of this kind of advice

A truly encouraging and supportive support member for your mental health challenges will put aside their own temporary pains of personal commitment, and engage in thinking about the long term benefits that not you but they will adopt from commiting to truly helping.

Personal superhero like qualities are gained such as patience, consciousness, empathy, true love, the ability to heal via energetic and verbal ways, and much more.

When friends and family don’t ‘get’ your mental health challenges, it’s almost always due to something at a deeper level that they refuse to do

That doesn’t mean they’re bad people, they’re just too caught up to add more to their plate. Although, it’s increidble what a book on anxiety disorders (written by someone who’s been ‘there’ of course) can shift the advice someone gives. Or taking time to observe the person with mental health challenges and providing situational feedback.

Many times the sufferer is so caught up in his/her catastrophic thinking tendencies that they don’t recognize the subtle patterns that lead to a feared emotional state.

So where does this leave you? The one with the mental health challenges? It leaves you with the need to be less reliant on others and more determined to understand yourself. Ultimately we want to leave the ideas that things in the outside world are the only ways to change what’s going on in the inner world, this includes other people’s support.

Your Life Is In Your Hands, And This Journey Through Mental Health Challenges Will Only Lead To Self Mastery, Once You’ve Mastered Your Emotions Of Course

So here’s my best piece of advice for you, lead by example. Show others through your own dedication to a CBT based program and constant and never ending faith in yourself that you can. This isn’t to motivate you but to open your mind to what’s possible for you.

There are infinite potentials when a sticky situation shows up, your job is to find the viewpoint which fits with the person you’re looking to create within. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that you are capable of baby steps towards desensitization, and no one needs to be a part of the journey should they choose not to be.

Share Your Experiences Below On How Friends And Family React To Your Mental Health Challenges.