Hawaii Island Recovery 
Stress is a universal experience, and there is no way to completely eliminate stress or its effects in daily life. However, for those living with mental health disorders, navigating stress and the additional challenges they present can be a challenge. While support and help are always available, for those living with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or an array of other mental health disorders, talking about these mental health needs can be a major barrier to getting help.
Knowing how to approach a partner about mental health needs, as well as what to expect, can empower each person to overcome this barrier, make the most of these conversations, and find new ways of overcoming these mental health needs with support, understanding, and sympathy in healing.
The Prevalence of Mental Health Needs
While mental health needs are becoming more understood and accepted each day, there are also still many stigmas surrounding various mental health needs or challenges. Mental health conditions or mental illness can also be more common than even the most accepting of communities may realize, with an estimated one in five adults living with some kind form mental health condition, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
However, this number does not account for the many people who live undiagnosed, or whose mental health needs may not necessarily constitute a mental health disorder but may demand support to address anyway, like anxiety, depressive episodes, or pervasive stress. Each person may also have varying skills or practice navigating stress or mental health challenges, making the journey addressing these needs unique.
Additionally, while some people may live with a diagnosed mental health disorder, other mental health needs can manifest at any time, such as resulting from unpredictable trauma or intense times of change. Talking to a partner, whether a spouse, family member, friend, or loved one, can be instrumental in finding support and overcoming these challenges with the support and understanding of a loving partner.
Likewise, stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and more can happen at any time, and even after talking about mental health needs with a partner, new challenges can still arise. Curating an atmosphere of support and understanding can be instrumental in addressing mental health needs while continuing to foster a healthy and supportive environment.
The Barriers to Talking About Mental Health Needs
Unfortunately, not all partners will necessarily approach talking about mental health needs with the same level of understanding, sympathy, or education. For those living with these challenges, there can also be many personal barriers to talking about these needs in the first place. However, this can lead to a dangerous cycle of stress, where those living with mental health needs suppress these challenges or attempt to address them in isolation, furthering the feelings of anxiety, depression, and other self-destructive behaviors that often accompany the practice.
Knowing what barriers are in place can empower each person to overcome these challenges and open an honest dialogue with a partner about mental health needs. These barriers can often include:
- Pervasive stigmas around mental health needs or disorders
- Feeling misunderstood, or as if they would be misunderstood
- Thinking that talking about mental health needs would “burden” a partner
- Inability or uncertainty on how to express these needs
- Intense feelings of vulnerability
- Fear of potential conflict or blame
- Adherence to culture or gender norms, such as men having a difficult time expressing mental needs through expectations to be “traditionally masculine”
Each of these barriers can be difficult to overcome. They can be especially difficult if a person has attempted to talk about mental health needs in the past and had a bad experience, from being misunderstood or judged to changing relationships, feeling ostracized or infantilized, or through personal inability to express oneself accurately. Both a negative experience or even a lack of change following talking about mental health needs can make opening oneself up to these vulnerable conversations again challenging.
However, support is always available, and we at Hawaii Island Recovery can help you not just overcome mental health needs and disorders, but also create a plan to talk to a partner about mental health needs for healing at home.
The Importance of Talking About Mental Health Needs
While there are many barriers to talking about mental health needs like anxiety, depression, stress, and more, it is still necessary. For many of those living with these challenges, these feelings can continue to manifest and worsen until addressed, exacerbating the negative experiences that each person lives with each day.
Attempting to overcome mental health disorders on one’s own, or continuing to push down these feelings, can lead to many self-destructive practices. The use of drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism can be especially common and dangerous. Other common challenges of unaddressed mental health needs include:
- Compromised feelings of self-worth
- Exhaustion
- Mental fatigue
- Persistent low mood and feeling “trapped”
- Skipping meals and hygiene routines
- Calling out of work or compromised workplace or academic performance
Talking about mental health needs can also be instrumental in better understanding the breadth of challenges that may affect entire households or important relationships. While the effects of mental health disorders can feel incredibly isolating, family members and loved ones commonly experience many effects themselves. Working with a partner to explore personal needs, and how these disorders have affected others, can promote the best approach to honest and comprehensive healing.
Talking about mental health needs is paramount to facilitating effective change. However, this is a process, and it doesn’t have to be done all at once. Rather, working with professionals at Hawaii Island Recovery to develop a plan to discuss mental health needs with a partner can ensure the most effective approach to these important conversations ahead.
Creating a Plan to Talk About Mental Health Needs
Despite all the barriers to talking about mental health needs, a discussion about these needs is necessary. However, there are always strategies each person can use to navigate this difficult and vulnerable time. Working with professionals to create a plan and to explore professional support if necessary can empower each person to approach these conversations with the best and most effective strategies.
Start Small
While talking about mental health needs is important for fostering honesty and communication with a partner, it doesn’t mean that a person has to spill everything all at once. Each person can always choose which people to tell, and which people a person is not comfortable talking about these challenges with. Talking to a partner but choosing not to disclose information to friends or other family members is completely valid. This can also empower each person to focus their efforts and discussions around only those prepared to provide sympathy and support.
Deciding to talk about mental health needs with a partner also doesn’t mean that a person has to disclose the whole extent of their challenges upfront. Easing into these conversations with smaller challenges and stresses can be a great way of normalizing talking about mental health needs while finding the right way to discuss larger challenges. Talking about individual stresses and challenges and then exploring how they factor into larger challenges with anxiety and depression can be a great way to ease the conversation without overwhelming either person with too much at one time.
Write It Down
Talking about vulnerable topics like mental health needs is challenging. Finding the right words to describe how it feels or a person’s unique experiences can be difficult. Before verbalizing these feelings and challenges with a partner, taking time to write them down, edit the words, and see the words on a page can all help to organize each person’s thoughts and plans when a discussion does arise.
Not only can this help each person find the right words to ensure that they are communicating effectively and are speaking how they want to be heard but it also ensures that a person has some practice talking about these vulnerable topics when it is time to talk to a partner. These conversations can be emotionally charged, and feelings of vulnerability can make it difficult to organize thoughts in the moment. Having this practice can help these conversations be effective and fruitful.
Be Honest
Being honest when talking about these challenges can be exceptionally difficult. It is common to want to sanitize things or leave out information due to perceptions of being judged or to avoid misunderstandings. Being honest with a partner, especially if there is something they do that is causing stress, can be a necessary part of this conversation.
However, being honest does not mean approaching these conversations with blame. For some, supports may simply not be aware that they are causing stress, or may not entirely understand what it is like to live with an anxiety disorder, depression, trauma, and more. Avoiding blame but still being open about one’s feelings and challenges can be an important launching point to change.
Honesty also goes both ways, and being honest with a partner means also allowing them to be open and honest in return to create a baseline for following conversations and healing.
Provide Resources
Those who are not living with mental health disorders, or who are but may have different challenges, may not fully understand all the intricacies of these challenges. Having resources that can help explain how a person feels can be instrumental. Websites that describe these disorders, or even resources for supports themselves on how to provide care and support during difficult times can be instrumental.
Expecting a partner to fully understand all the difficult challenges that come with mental health needs from the onset can be unrealistic. Providing resources while talking about personal needs can provide the information necessary for partners to adopt new ways of thinking and implement effective adjustments.
Give It Time
Talking about mental health needs is just the beginning of effective change and healing at home. However, providing partners with time to make changes and adjustments is important. It takes time for healing and change to become normalized and ingrained, and allowing for time to make adjustments is necessary. While it is still important for a partner to make an effort to change and provide effective support, some changes will take time and partners may have to unlearn some habits and practices to best support their loved one navigating mental health needs.
Choose the Time and Place
Any kind of vulnerable topic of conversation should be handled with care. Choosing a place where there will be limited noise and light pollution can be paramount to having an honest and open conversation. Turning off digital devices and limiting any potential distractions can go a long way in ensuring that a person is focused and heard during these conversations.
Likewise, choosing a time that won’t be interrupted or cut short can also support effective communication. Avoiding beginning these conversations just before appointments or scheduled responsibilities can ensure that there is time to discuss these needs openly.
Choosing the right time and place can not create the most supportive and open atmosphere for having an honest discussion and also give partners and loved ones time to ask questions. A calm space can ensure that these questions can be asked honestly and openly. Nobody has to have all the answers, but being ready to field difficult questions oneself is part of creating this open dialogue about mental health needs and deconstructing stigmas.
Know Your Goals
Having a plan to create an open atmosphere and conversation is crucial. However, before beginning any conversation, knowing the goal of these discussions is paramount. For some, these conversations about mental health needs are to garner additional support at home during challenging times, such as stresses related to work, finances, or other relationships. Feelings of anxiety, depression, and more can be completely enveloping, and having at-home and knowledgeable support can be crucial.
For others, these conversations can be necessary to prevent partners from adding unnecessary stress. A discussion about mental health needs can begin by changing vocabulary that may not be intended to be harmful but causes stress. For others, certain behaviors may cause a lot of stress at home, and identifying these specific situations can be the reason behind having a conversation about mental health needs. Knowing the goals can help set expectations for these conversations, target specific changes, and open a new ongoing dialogue.
Considering Professional Help
While partners can make amazing supports, it can take time to learn the best way to help a loved one with mental health needs. Understanding depression, anxiety, panic, bipolar disorder, and more can be exceptionally challenging, and having the support of a professional during this time while partners are learning about these things can be instrumental. Hawaii Island Recovery’s dedicated family programs can be a part of this approach to support and change.
Professional family programs can provide education to those living with mental health disorders and their partners about the challenges and effects of various disorders. These programs can also create and model a fair and open space to practice communication skills, challenge stigmas and barriers, and create an atmosphere devoid of blame in favor of sympathy and understanding.
Family programs and professional treatment can also help partners and those living with additional mental health needs explore new ways of practicing support and self-care at home to address anxiety, depression, stress, and more. Being able to understand mental health needs and make practical changes at home is the basis of a sustainable and healthy approach to overcoming mental health disorders together, and can deepen understanding and relationships.
There is no “quick fix” to mental health needs, and many of those living with various mental health disorders or challenges may continue to experience these challenges until they can be addressed. Having knowledgeable support at home can be a transformative resource in many situations, with partners being essential in providing this kind of unconditional change. However, talking about mental health needs will always be difficult. Giving time, committing to personal healing, and using professional resources can be the beginning of truly embracing change and understanding at home.
Talking about mental health needs can always be challenging, even when talking to trusted loved ones and family members. Making an effort to communicate with a partner can lead to effective healing and change at home, but knowing how to approach the conversation first is crucial. At Hawaii Island Recovery, we can help you explore your best healing opportunities for overcoming mental health disorders while developing strategies to communicate with your partner outside of the treatment facility. We understand that healing does not end at our doors, and our robust aftercare program and continued support are always available to facilitate change at home. For more information on how we can help, call us today at (866) 390-5070.
