This is a question that I feel I am particularly well placed to answer because I have had such a personal experience myself. Although my husband's sister is not mentally ill, she is intellectually disabled and probably only has the IQ of a three or four year old child.I once lived at home with my in-laws and my sister's nephews for a year, and I really found it very painful.
First of all, I don't discriminate against people with disabilities, otherwise I wouldn't have married my husband. But when people actually live together, they realize how much their daily lives are affected by having such a person in the family. And those effects are in every aspect, and you can't be completely oblivious to them.
Among the first aspect: people around you will always joke about this person towards you.The Chinese will always be like this, especially fond of gossiping about other people and watching the hilarity of other people's homes. If you have an intellectually or mentally abnormal person in your family, they will always look for the right opportunity to run out and make fun of or tease you about it from time to time. You haven't been able to get angry, because what they say is true, and you can only bear it with a smile on your face if you feel angry again.
For example, some people will say: your family that stupid crazy man called you today? How does he eat? Will he do things for you? Does he sleep at night? Is he a bully? And many more questions, these things they know the answer, but just like to see you answer the questions embarrassed look, every day repeat the same topic.
The second aspect: to put up with people mocking and insulting him/her even including you.Mocking or teasing the weak is everyone's favorite thing to do. One of the things I remember most was when a group of kids were playing and threw small stones at my sister and laughed at her. She was defiant and tried to hit back, and immediately an adult stopped her. This made the little kids intensify, and not only did they continue to laugh at her, but they even sang a song about her being a fool, and dragged her son along with them.
I was especially angry when I saw this, so I slapped my oldest nephew, then stood all the other kids aside in the yard and took my sister away. As a result, the parents of those kids later came running to accuse me of meddling. And my great nephew went home and told his grandmother that I had hit him. This incident, let me heart hard for a long time, think the human heart is really terrible.
The third aspect: to put up with his or her offense to you.As long as it is a person with a heart that is not bad, it will always give way to the other person when getting along with such a person. I was pregnant at the time, and usually helped them get their meals done all by myself, trying not to bother anyone. Once they had guests at home and had to cook for a dozen people, I was a little too busy, so I asked my sister to help me burn the fire (at that time in the countryside, because of the large number of people used a wood stove). She did help me do it with a smile on her face, but when she went to the village later, she told everyone that I was bullying her, hitting her at home, scolding her, and making her do the heavy lifting.
You know you didn't do any of these things, but no one will believe it. Because they think it must be normal people who have more heart and are easier to bully. So how much suffering you can only endure on your own, no one will sympathize with you. After this, I never asked her to do anything for me again, even something as easy as handing me something.
In fact, there are many other aspects that will have an impact, such as daily life and diet, you always have to consider the other person's difference, even when you talk to the other person, you have to use a different tone and attitude. What I went through in that year was enough to embolden the following ten years. And the one who is usually responsible for taking care of all the daily routine of such a person, I don't know how many times more tired than me.