What do you do when you don’t have the positive and encouraging support of your family and/or friends?
Research shows that when those of us with mental health challenges have a good support system of family and friends actually do better than those who do not have a support system. It only makes sense. After all, as it is with any challenges in life, we all do better with the support of family and friends. The support of my wife, family, and close friends was key encouraging me and helping me to learn to live well in spite of having a bipolar disorder.
So, what do you do when you have no positive and encouraging support from your family and/or friends?
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- Choose to work through your hurt from the lack of support from your family and/or friends. You can’t change people. Sometimes you have to just accept the fact that family and friends do not understand nor are they helpful; you resenting it won’t change them and will only end up holding you back.
- Choose to find and establish the type of encouraging positive support system that you need. How?
- Look for a positive, helpful, principled mental health recovery peer support group, in person or online. A support group is a great place to find friends who can be positive and supportive to whom you can be accountable on a regular basis. (For example, Fresh Hope now has support group meetings online so no matter where you live you can find positive and encouraging mental health support group.)
- Finding a local peer support specialist is also another possibility for a positive support system.
- Other places to find good friends are at church, a health club, the gym, and with special interest groups.
Remember, you and I become like the five people we spend the most time with; therefore choose friends carefully.
In spite of having a great support group of a spouse, family, and friends. I’ve also had an accountability group of peers have help me accountable or my mental health recovery and doing the things that are best for me and for my family. My accountability group has been key in my recovery support system. The have had access to my doctor and my wife.