Someone I really care about has mental illness but repeatedly stops taking his medication and his symptoms come back. Sometimes my friend has to be hospitalized. How can I help him?
One answer is to let the person with mental illness know that he can always count on your love and friendship, but their best chances of improvement will occur when they accept that medication is crucial to their recovery. Sometimes one can help persons struggling with mental illness (especially bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) decide for themselves which is worse the short periods of time without the medication and side effects, followed by the inevitable resurgence of the illness (often times with worse symptoms than before).....or, the steadier, prolonged times of symptom-free living (or at least more manageable symptoms) while taking the medications, and coping with the side effects? In a recent study, Hamann and colleagues have shown that higher rates of non-compliance with schizophrenia treatment were associated with re-hospitalizations between 6 and 18 months following a previous hospitalization.