A caring heart for the one you love

I believe we need to walk beside our family member; we need to be brave and hopeful, and not see the person as the illness.

A story of love and support from someone whose family member has recovered from his experience of mental illness

"People say family members can be affected by other family members who experience mental illness. I come from a collective culture, where it is important to work as a team and as a family, and I can say that we have all been affected.

However, the secret to our success in helping our loved one was to remember to care and nurture him.

It's important to be empathetic when your sister or brother, mother or father or child is having a bad day. They need love, care and understanding, especially during times when they are feeling really distressed.

What I find helpful is to do things that will ease their stress - this has to be done without judgement or imposing any of your own values. It is important to remember we all have the same needs, with or without mental illness.

To understand my family member better, I am learning about mental health issues; this has helped us all to overcome many obstacles. So far, I have completed more than 20 papers! The knowledge that I gained has made a positive impact on all our lives.

Many people have misconceptions about those who experience mental illness, and those untruths lead to stigma and discrimination and, potentially, more harm.

Stigma and discrimination is such a problem in Chinese communities, but I hope that one day the anti-stigma and discrimination message will reach all levels of society, and that these kinds of attitudes will be eliminated once and for all. Love enables me to look beyond my own prejudice toward mental illness.

I believe we need to walk beside our family members. We need to be brave and hopeful, and not see the person as the illness.

And, remember, we don't need to hide anything - mental illness is just like any other health issue; consulting with your doctor when you are sick is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Our family has shown that mental illness can be overcome - after many years of help and support from professionals and family members, I'm so happy to be able to say that our loved one has recovered."