Some say that the more you are exposed to something, the more likely you are to pick it up. The same has been anecdotally proven to be true for mental health conditions and outright insanity. The longer you are thrust into an environment where mental health is compromised, the higher the chances are that you’ll end up emulating their behavior. Some hardcore psychologists can sometimes deliberately attempt to appear insane just to get an inside look at how things are on the other side, but those people have questionable mental health anyway. It is interesting that there are very few studies being conducted to see whether or not prolonged exposure to insanity can lead a perfectly sane person to go down that same road.
There is a piece of old advice that says playing along with the delusions of the insane is more effective than fighting it when it comes to preserving one’s mental health. The trick, supposedly, is being able to keep their perception of reality from becoming yours. However, this only holds true for those who have psychological or anxiety disorders that are obvious. This would be difficult to apply to someone who has a mental health problem that...