Robert Shulman, MD: How Family Members Can Steer Their Loved One with PTSD Toward Help

If you have a family member, someone you love, someone you know who’s showing symptoms, how can you get them help? Willingness to talk about things is key. Willingness to say to somebody “are you okay, are you having difficulties, what’s bothering you, what’s hurting you? Let me help you.” If you say to them, “How can I help,” and they shrug their shoulders, sometimes you have to say “let me help you.” This is related to battle, let’s look and see what resources there are, let’s call someone. Let’s call the hotline, let’s see what’s out there for you. I think families can usually educate themselves pretty well. I mean, it’s usually not a sudden thing. It builds up and they’re able to recognize the changes. The key is not to be angry at someone and not to reject people, but just to give the message “I love you, I care about you, I’m going to help you. You have to let me help you, you have to trust me to get you someplace for help.” They can’t take responsibility, they shouldn’t take responsibility for another person’s health, but they can take responsibility for trying to steer them someplace. In the long run, as I like to teach residents and students, that we can’t own somebody else’s suffering. We can’t take it on for ourselves. We can’t suffer for them. It’s non-productive. If someone is – “I’m depressed because my spouse is depressed”, that’s not productive, it doesn’t do anybody any good. It makes it about themselves and not trying to help the other person. So, it’s really just the recognition someone is suffering and just to say I recognize it, I want to help, let’s do this. BrainLine is powered in part by Wounded Warrior Project to honor and empower post-9/11 injured service members, veterans, and their families.