1 in every 4 adults is likely to develop intense mental health problems in the US. This makes almost half the country vulnerable to the difficulties, concerns, and challenges that mental health problems throw our way.
When people develop mental health disorders, they tend to fall into an empty and meaningless void, leaving them tired, unmotivated, and hard to be around. However, mental health problems don’t just affect the person with these disorders but also deeply impact the people around them.
This could result in several relationship problems with friends, family, spouses, and more. Let’s look at how mental health disorders affect people around us.
How It Affects the Person
Mental health disorders have a profound impact on the person that has them. It can affect their social, psychological, and emotional abilities to deal with everyday life. Here are some of the most common effects bad mental health has on people.
Decreased Quality of Life
You can be severely unmotivated to get everyday things done as a person with mental health disorders. This would mean most of your to-do lists are incomplete, leaving a lot of space for errors throughout the day. Most people find it impossible to go to work with zeal and positivity, which affects their overall quality of life.
Lowered Productivity
Mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression can sometimes make you too tired to get simple things done. It can lower your productivity to a great extent, leaving you too exhausted to get things done at home and even at work.
These low levels of productivity can affect your work ethic and employment opportunities. People with lower productivity often end up losing their jobs.
Reduced Socializing
People who develop PTSD, depression, or severe clinical anxiety often end up reducing their social contact. They crawl back into a shell, where they are reluctant to talk to their friends, family, and loved ones.
They avoid social gatherings, lunch meetings, or a nice movie day. To help them out, you can help hang out with them in a way that they feel comfortable. A person with a mental health disorder might want to walk in the park or sit aimlessly in front of the television.
Psychological Impacts
Most mental health disorders have a traumatic effect on the person’s psychological upbringing. They tend to develop anxieties, deep-rooted fears, and a need to closely check everything before going out for a simple gas refill. It can affect their memory and ability to process situations and problems as quickly as a person without any mental health disorder.
Other Health Problems
Most people with mental health disorders miss out on sleep and eating regularly. These problems tend to maximize and create further health problems, including hypertension, eating disorders, and more.
How It Affects the People Around Them
Family, friends, and relationships are the first people to get affected if you develop a mental health disorder. With a person struggling with mental health problems, their close ones must make extra efforts to keep them afloat – this can induce stress and adversely affect their health. Here are some ways they can be affected.
Chronic Stress
People actively tending to mental health affected will eventually develop a lot of stress that might even become a chronic stress problem. They will worry about the little things they need to tend to, the progress of their loved ones, and the demanding schedules they must endure.
Emotional Instability
With people with mental health disorders, you can never know which emotion is too much to put on the table and which isn’t enough. Most people are always playing near the borderline, hoping that they don’t make these people uncomfortable.
This creates a lot of emotional instability for the person, making them vulnerable and open to getting hurt easily.
How to Make It Better
There are several things that a person can do to ease the entire process of battling mental health disorders. Some of these include the following:
1. Better and open communication from both ends.
2. Asking for professional health
3. Reading about similar experiences.
To understand better, why don’t you look at Luis Trivino’s real-life experiences with mental health problems and relationship difficulties? His new book, A Notebook of Love, is a compilation of his journey with mental health disorders, his marital problems, his early life, and his life as a US Army Veteran. Get in touch with them, or place an order for your copy today!
About the Author,
The author is a relationship expert who stabilizes a person’s relationship with their family, friends, and spouses. They spend their time blogging about relevant topics to help people channel their inner feelings in a healthy manner.