Personality change can hit mental illness of students of any age. Rachel was in High School When she started feeling depressed. She had to skip her classes back from school rather than getting help from a counseling session for her personality change due to mental illness. Richard turned into drugs and alcohol, and she was going to kill herself thinking of a party. But she was saved by being loved by one of her family.
She further explains the addition of providing professional help in her recovery of mental illness and describes the environment. She said she was brought up religious, which affected her personality change; being raised in a spiritual environment, happiness directly correlated with righteousness. Rachel was able to recognize that she was going through depression and personality change due to mental illness. Those who were supposed to support her were against intervention and actively discouraged Rachel from seeking help from a professional. While she was in utter need have support to cope with mental illness.
“Whichever advice I was given, I was told not to mention anything to anyone, pray, and avoid stigmatization.”
Without good support, she obtained comfort from the wrong sources; drugs and alcohol could only think of them, no other way of escape from this personality change. Rachael S Associates a court-ordered rehabilitation program of five-month for resting her life from mental illness.
How to Overcome Shame and Stigma?
According to Ashley Groesbeck, R.’s story is not uncommon, a clinical social worker in New York City. “Shame and stigma associated with mental illness and addiction are huge in our society,” she says. She further added this problem is enormous for addiction which is more common” labeled as a lack of self-control by the people.” Ampere accompanies the stigma making it challenging to seek help and suggest help to others for personality change.
Groesbeck has been working for eight years with the families of traumatized veterans and youth with personality change. He said, “having shame factor in mind makes it difficult for people to seek help against mental illness” people hide their behaviors when a loved one approaches them about their addiction. There is a gap of communication that affects the disease and the diseased.
Groesbeck said there is a need to adopt unorthodox techniques to help people with personality change. Start by asking about the amusement part of their mental illness addiction, what made them fall for addiction and drugs. By doing so, realize the person late you are getting nothing out of it; they need to leave addiction with openly acknowledging the downsides. They can be made aware of relationship problems, financial difficulties, and missing career opportunities as they are suffering from mental illness.
After you allow them to think about their personality change, dig deep into their personality, and explore the pros and cons themselves, they will get back to you to get some more help against mental illness.
The Probability Is that They Have. Atypical Intervention for Personality Change Works by Including the Following Steps:
- Make a plan for the family members and friends to propose an intervention.
- Involving a qualified therapist is best for you. A psychologist must be on a team; a social worker and international therapist can help make suitable interventions for personality change. There is a chance of worsening the situation by igniting the emotions, triggering anger and a feel of shame for mental illness.
- Do a good search and gather information about the topic. Research a topic and treatment options available. And enroll your loved one in a specific treatment program.
- From the intervention team point of you, a planning group should be constituted. Team members should coordinate on their set date and time to rehearse before delivering the message about coping with mental illness, According to the structured plan. Non-family members of the team are equally important for dealing with personality change; they see the situation factually and find actual Problems and solutions without getting work done by the emotions. Don’t reveal to your loved ones that you will do some intervention to help them in their personality change.
- Be ready for the consequences if your loved one is not accepting treatment for mental illness and personality change.
- Team members have to individually decide his or her role and what they can do to help. For example, you can choose to go with the loved one to take her on a walk.
- Take notes about the interventions against mental illness to be done. Each team member’s role is defined and noted. Each member should describe a specific incident with the personality change by the drugs causing problems. Describe emotional and fiscal issues. Describe to them how this is causing problems and what can be done to correct the situation. Ask them their point of you. Your loved one isn’t able to argue with you on facts or your emotions towards the problem.
- Start by saying,” I am significantly hurt when you abuse…..”
- Do follow-up meetings about intervention, and follow the mental illness and personality change. Ask about the individual observations and also ask your loved one how he/she is feeling now. Members of the team must take turns to speak and express their feelings and freely talk about the situation. Your loved one is presented with treatment options and asking her to choose an option of her choice. Wrong behavior will be to threaten a consequence unless it is a last resort Unless you are ready to follow it.
- Involve your spouse, other family members, and Guardians in taking crucial decisions in addiction, stay in the treatment of mental illness and try to avoid relapse.
- There is a need to change the routine of Living to avoid better harmful behavior, personality change, exposure to drugs, and a chance to fall back. In case of relapse, see care from a therapist, and get recovery support.
Dr. Mark Komrad is a psychiatrist based in Baltimore; he notes that you do not have to perform a diagnosis on your patient. He is the writer of a manual, A Step-by-Step Guide for convincing dear Ones to start counseling [1]. In which he described his approach toward the personality change problems. “You very soon realize that something is wrong with your loved ones, mental illness; their behavior, feelings, attachments, relationships, and thoughts are changed. But you don’t realize that it needs to be corrected by the help and for the revaluation by a professional rather than simply by caring support that you can provide for personality change”
Groesbeck For the advocates about my mental illness including personality change, most vital is to ensure love and harmony in the family,” if you follow the TV show about personality change Intervention, the talk about getting rid of family and friends and then talk about the ways drugs were hurting them.” In his view, this is the wrong approach. “This is certainly a way but not the way you start.” A good way of starting is showing empathy towards the person affected by personality change, “I care about you, and here are the reasons why.’ Then, ask her about drinking and drugs and what is affecting more mental illness”.
Another psychiatrist Komrad Agrees that you should start with the gentle approach towards factors of personality change or mental illness and then explaining the tough measures. Such as placing the relationship at risk; providers may be more effective in reducing problem behaviors if used as a last resort, given addicts’ tendency to behave unrestrictedly.
Groesbeck says Physical alcohol and drugs should be confiscated at the initial stages. The problem of mental illness and personality change becomes more pathological as time progresses. She says a healthy family should not have secrets about mental illness.
Dual Diagnosis
The stigma of society is very powerful in delaying the treatment of mental illness including personality change; this is not the story of Rachel but many other girls and boys out there needing help after falling for addiction. He realizes the stats are “nebulous.” Groesbeck reports that between 25-30 percent suffer co-occurring mental illness in people with drug or alcohol addictions, whether it be depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
The co-occurrence of many medical conditions and dual diagnoses double affects personality change. In Many cases, we are not sure which problem of mental illness started first– or the drug addiction. Like the tale of chicken and egg, no one knows who came first. Issues blend to make the situation worse. It confuses the therapist like muddy water. Many of the symptoms are common, relating to the stage of the addiction-mental illness cycle. But we have a Clear View; recovery only lasts when both issues are addressed together. To comprehend the personality change, one must fully understand the interaction between their mental illness addictions and personality change disorders.
In the case of Rachel was found to have chronic depression, dysthymia 10 years after her discharge from the rehabilitation center. She carefully managed to avoid relapse. But it was not an easy task to tackle her personality change.
Between 25-30 percent of people with drug abuse go through a dual diagnosis mental illness, whether it be depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.
I believe if I knew then, I’d have become a grown adult a lot earlier. “Racheal says about her mental illness including personality change “I spent my time in bed hiding from reality when I could have accomplished more if I had spent that time developing relationships, advancing my career, that kind of thing.”
Groesbeck finds the difficulty in discovering a Centre that can treat both addiction and mental illness,” most of the facilities are specialized in only one care.” Still, it will be worth doing some extra investigations to rule out the organic disease. “As a conclusion, all the discussion and investigation suggest that dual diagnosis is core in treating a personality change and mental illness.”
1 http://www.komradmd.com/Mark_Komrad_MD/Welcome.html
*Names have been changed to protect privacy
Work by Tamarra Kemsley
Ben Lesser is one of the most sought-after experts in health, fitness and medicine. His articles impress with unique research work as well as field-tested skills. He is a freelance medical writer specializing in creating content to improve public awareness of health topics. We are honored to have Ben writing exclusively for Dualdiagnosis.org.