One thing that I touch on a lot is what not to say to people with mental health issues. "Don't call them this," "don't ask about that," etc. But I don't really go into detail about what to say.
The main reason why I don't do that is because what you should say often depends on who you're talking to. Some people don't mind a little teasing remark, others can't handle it. Some people would rather be sarcastic than serious, while other people would naturally take your words at face value and be hurt by them. The rhyme and reason of when and how you should say things is based on who you're speaking to. There's no way for someone to just tell you, "you should say things like this." That's not really how us humans work.
Despite that, though, there is something that many people seem to lack when they approach mental health issues, and that something helps a lot when it comes to not saying things rude or meanly. That something is compassion.
When you're addressing anyone, my belief is that one of your goals should be for compassion to shine through you—try to see things from their point of view. Why are they responding how they are? How are they feeling about this? But when people are so drastically different, as when they think differently or have a very different personality or anything else, that ability to be compassionate may seem nonexistent.
In my opinion, when that compassion isn't there, that's when we say things wrong.
“It’s one thing to know the professional, medical term, but you have showed me how they [mental health disorders] affect people day to day and helped me grow in compassion!” (Natalie Davis)
Many people aren't compassionate because they don't know what the real issue is; sometimes the simple reason is that nobody has explained things to them. While it'd be nice if explanations weren't necessary, there are places where we (mental health warriors and anyone else) have to choose whether we'll explain our reasoning to open ourselves up for compassion or remain determinedly stuck on the idea that we shouldn't need to explain ourselves.
The truth is, everyone has different needs, everyone has different capacities for opening themselves up and being compassionate, and there's a time where we all need to step outside our comfort zone in the name of improvement.
Would you rather tell someone that you communicate differently than them, or constantly misunderstand each other?
Would you rather share your strengths and weaknesses with someone so that you can potentially play on both of your strengths, or just do everything that you're not so great at doing, perhaps then failing at it?
Compassion isn't this great dramatic gesture—it's not always helping someone up after they've fallen and understanding how much it hurts. It can be keeping someone upright before they fall, knowing what the fall might feel like; it can be trying to understand where a person's coming from and listening intently, doing your best to imagine from their point of view.
Compassion isn't magical.
It requires effort to be compassionate sometimes, but the benefits far outweigh the difficulties. However, if you aren't willing to try to be compassionate, you aren't going to succeed at being compassionate.
What mental health warriors need the most isn't just someone to tell them to keep going, that they've got this. What we need are people to listen, people to try to see how hard we're trying and who aren't afraid to try to help us shoulder the heavy burdens we have to live with. People who are compassionate not only to the mental aspect of it but to the emotional and even physical effects that mental illnesses have on us.
Compassion may be hard for you, but it can make a world of difference to someone you so dearly love.