Extreme agoraphobia, social anxiety, very little to talk about... Most 31 year olds are working, raising children, etc., and don't live in their parents house. Don't underestimate the shame he feels when around others. Outside his family, I think it is overwhelming for him.

I think this is a very important point. He doesn't fit in and humans love to ask one another about their lives. If you give non-standard answers, then you're seen as weird or a failure in life.

> Why not similar activities with the general population?

This is something that has been recommended for many years. Rahter than day centres where mentally ill people can go, secluded away from the world, we should provide a wider range. Still have those day centres for the people who need it, but focus on helping people reintegrate with their local communities by using "mainstream" services.

Here's a pdf from 2006, but there are earlier examples. https://lx.iriss.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Redesi...

This type of belief is exactly what I was referring to when I said that one of the main features of his illness is that it resists anything that we would consider rehabilitating. Attitudes like this add to the sense of shame: "why don't you get out more and try to be normal like us. Everyone thinks it's a good idea for you." Makes me sick.

Ann doesn't want to join a creative writing group for mentally ill people, she wants to join a creative writing group.

Bob doesn't want a work-like scheme for mentally ill people, he wants to keep his current job and wants advice about disclosing mental illness to his employer and asking for reasonable adjustments.

These are the things that me and my friends have been campaigning for for all these years- a socially inclusive recovery model.

This. It's difficult to establish and maintain a sense of normalcy and social integration when you're only being offered a sort of tacit ghettoisation. Support groups can offer very useful support, but they can also become a trap of mutually-reinforcing pathology. Psychiatric inpatient units are a really difficult place to get better, precisely because you're surrounded by a lot of deeply troubled people who generally would rather be anywhere else.

The Camphill Movement offers an exemplary model of how people with learning difficulties can be integrated into a genuine community. What barriers are preventing us from offering similarly strong integration for people with severe and enduring mental illness? Why are so many people with moderately severe mental health problems being excluded from society for lack of relatively modest accommodations?

But it's also true. It's helpful for all people of varying states of mental health, whether you start out with a psychotic disorder or not. We all need and desire social support.

So it becomes this sort of jedi trick of encouraging those things without being pushy. I don't always know how to pull that off.

Downvoters, I am curious what the objection is. If I may elaborate on the second paragraph, the situation I am describing is one where someone is harming themselves or others, but saying everything is fine and refusing treatment. Then they get treatment, they improve for a while, and maybe you see some behavior that reminds you of that earlier episode, but they insist they're fine again. So you might ask: is this a relapse into delusion? Or are they really fine? Honestly it is tough to answer. When you have seen their condition hurting people and being kind of dangerous, it's easy to get scared of misjudging that situation.