how to help a friend with mental health problems

[meysey]

Has anyone got any tips for helping a friend with mental health problems? She was under a mental health team at her last home, and was admitted to a hospital mental health unit at one point a few years ago, but since moving house has had no treatment.

She is getting very distressed and feels persecuted, and hears people saying bad things about her, and sometimes feels suicidal. A friend of hers who is a mental health nurse thinks she is a paranoid schizophrenic.

It is hard to know what to to. She is well educated and manages to convince many people that all her problems are caused by horrible neighbours. These neighbours allegedly follow her around and move into places nearby when she moves house. Her close friends know that this is not true.

As we are not family, her friends cannot communicate with her GP. And my friend does not seem to think she has mental health problems at the moment. We are very worried about her.

She only has one relative, who has other health problems and either doesn't realise what is happening, or is not in a position to help her.

This may help

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/speaking-to-gp-about-someone-elses-health.aspx?CategoryID=155&SubCategoryID=155

Thanks

meysey it really does sound like your friend is mentally ill, with a pyschotic illness (as in being out of touch with reality) and needs help urgently. The thing is when people are pyschotic they don't understand that they are ill. This is why some people who are very ill, need to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. I wonder why this friend who is a mental health nurse is not doing more to help - doesn't sound like a good friend to me.

I hope the link that "dogs and cats" has provided will help, and your friend will give her consent to you talking to her GP and asking him/her to come out and see her, as she may not be willing to go to the surgery.