Love and non-judgment
Patronising pity can make the attention of others oppressive.
Loving companions do not judge us as beneath them. They don't oppress us by clinging to their belief in their own solidity and competence. Our companions indicate that they too might one day be in our place and suffer with and for us.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
A loving companion looking after a mentally sick friend doesn't care very much about what other people may think. They don't care if they are in a minority when loving us.
We are not loved for anything we have done, but simply because we exist.
When we are sick in our minds, we have this punishing sense of how terrible we are, even if we often can't point to a specific crime. We are appalled by, and unforgiving of, who we are.
In this situation, a loving companion can make all the difference. They don't try to persuade us of our worth. They make pleasant conversation about something that won't make us anxious. They can tolerate how ill we are and will stick by us. They love us for who we are rather than what we do.
Many mental traumas are the result of abandonment, and the neglect has thrown us off balance ever since. We may find it hard to depend on others.
A loving companion is ready to fight to earn our trust. We may try to incite despair and frustration and say some awful things to a carer we love. A wise companion will remain unruffled because they understand they are tested.
Love is critical to help us keep faith with life and rescue us from severe mental illness.
In fact, anyone who has ever suffered from mental illness and recovers will do so because of love, whether from a friend, a partner, a child, or a parent.
The mentally ill person is continually worried about ongoing and limitless torment. What if someone wants to take them away? What if the voices in their head never go away?
The loving companion does their best to quieten the panic. They present the future as unknowable but that the future will be fundamentally safe and bearable. They insist that they will be there.
When mentally ill, we may want to return again and again to the subject that should normally have been dealt with.
However, the loving response is to take the worry as seriously as possible and address it head-on without scoffing or denying the scale of the concern.
RELATED IDEAS
A mind in a healthy state is continuously performing a set of manoeuvres that uphold our moods.
A healthy mind is an editing mind that filters through particular ideas and sensations that actively need to be entertained so that we can direct our lives effectively.
Love is often seen as the exciting feeling we get in the presence of someone with great intelligence of beauty that we hope will reciprocate our interest and whom we badly want to touch and one day share our lives with.
But there is another definition of love that is not so much focused on the appreciation of strength as on the tolerance of, and kindness towards, the weak and misshapen.
We expect our partner to be perfect in every way. As we spend our life with our partner, we seem to mistakenly believe that the other person will have everything in common with us and will think the same thought that is occurring in our head, at the same time.
If we have unrealistic and comical expectations from our partners, getting irritated at every minor flaw, and having a lofty, movie-like idea of what a relationship is, we won't be happy no matter who we are with.