A Happy Person's Guide To Dealing With Someone With Depression

Do you have a friend/family member who struggles with depression? Are you tired of feeling helpless and just want to know how to cheer this person up already? Do you wish this person would just talk to you and let you know what's wrong? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this blog post is for you.

First, lets start by distinguishing the different types of depression. Depression is not an uncommon emotion that all of us will feel or have felt at some point in our lives. This is normal. However, there's another form of depression that lingers longer and happens to people who otherwise should be happy. This blog is for people who fall into that category.

So you have a friend or loved one... or a friend that is a loved one. Who just seems down all the time. They have a good life. They're employed, have a family who loves them, nothing traumatic has happened to them. Yet this person still seems to feel down. What can you do to make them happy again? How can you get them to open up to you?

The answer is very simple. You can't. Chronic depression is a (and I hate this term) Mental Disorder. There's something going on inside of them that causes them to feel down. Because there's not an event or anything in particular that caused them to feel this way, there's nothing you can do to fix it. Chances are this is the very reason that this person isn't wanting to open up and talk to you about it. It's awkward to tell someone without depression when you're feeling down because there's absolutely nothing they can do to fix it so you just feel bad for putting them in a position where they want to help but can't.

But wait, you can just cheer this person up by taking them out and helping them forget about everything, right?

Wrong. The depression is coming within them which means that there's nothing for them to "forget." Trying to get them to go out will probably just lead them to having to force a smile and interact with people when all they probably want is to curl up in a ball and be by themselves.

So what can you do?

While this will vary from person to person, what I've found that most people with depression want is just to know that people care. The best thing you can do is just be a consistent good friend (i.e. not just a fair weather friend and not just readily available in crisis). Chances are this person is just having a depressive episode and just needs to let it take its course and relieve the emotional pressure. The best thing you can do for them is just care and be there when they need you.

Depression is not a choice people make, and for some people it's just something they have to learn to live with. This doesn't make them a broken person nor does that mean that they can't be a happy person. Depressed people just need what everyone needs - love :)

Steff

Emotional Extraction

Been having stuff go through my head a lot lately, and I really feel like I need to get it out of me.

So I've struggled with depression since I was a kid. It's just been one of those things I've learned to deal with, comes and goes and what not. However, lately it's just been coming, not going.

Throughout my life, I've had various ways to cope with my abundance of emotion, but most of these methods weren't healthy and caused further emotional stress in the long run. My most destructive methods of coping went on for about 2 years. It's now been over a year since I've gone through that, and I feel like those wounds are now mostly healed. My life has reached a relatively stable point and things are really going well for me currently - My dad isn't on the brink of death, I'm making good choices, I'm enjoying school, and I enjoy my job. But still... something's going on that causes me to have that heavy feeling in my chest that isn't going away like it should. I'm accustom to feeling down every once in a while, but I can usually just sleep it off or wait it out and it's gone. This is different. It's been almost 3 weeks now. Even if I'm around friends and enjoying company of other people, it's still there. There's still a weight that's pulling me so I constantly feel like only a part of myself is happy, while the other part is just this heaviness that's constantly trying to pull me away.

Before when I've had long bouts like this I've always blamed it on bad circumstances and thought to myself that it will get better once I reach certain goals or get to a certain point in my life. I could see clear reasons for my unhappiness. Once I got good friends, once I felt like people liked me, once I got a job I really enjoyed, once I figured out what I want to do with my life, etc. That's the thing though - I'm there now. Really. Everything is going so well for me in my life, there's very little more I could ask for. And I still feel so dark inside.

And that's the part that scares me...

Does this mean that I'm going to always have to deal with this? That I just need to get used to a feeling of lacking or, as cliche as it may sound, a hole in my chest? This is what worries me. I'm afraid I'm going to revert back to my old behaviors, because even if my choices caused me anguish, there still was that moment that I got to forget everything and just enjoy that moment where I could lie to myself for a little while.
I don't want to go back to that. I really don't. But I'd be lying if I said the proposition isn't becoming more and more tempting. It's just so hard feeling like I'm doing what I know I'm supposed to do and feeling like life is just getting more and more difficult, even though everything is going right.

Well, that's all I got for now. Had to let it out.

Thanks
Steff