We know from statistics that one out of every four Americans will be faced with a depressive episode in his or her lifetime. That means that many of us will experience a friend or family member’s fight with depression. But do any of us know how to deal with depression when it hurts someone we love?
I’ve had four serious battles with depression. While struggling under the disease’s relentless waves, I saw my family and friends left on the outside of the wall depression had built between us. No one seemed to know what to say or do to support me during hospitalizations or in the long months I spent recovering from the episodes. I knew of many ways my friends and family could have reached through the wall of depression to help me, but most of them didn’t.
For anyone witnessing a friend, partner, or family member suffering from depression, here are Seven Essentials for helping to relieve the disease’s vicious symptoms. You do have the power to support someone in the midst of a depressive episode.
Seven Essentials
1. Provide a listening ear. Start the conversation by sharing your concern for your friend of family member. Name some observations you’ve noticed about her lately, and follow with some open-ended questions. Leave an opportunity for her to talk. Assure her you are not there to judge but to listen. It is so hard to find words to talk about depression, and even harder for most to hear these words. When someone is depressed, her mind is often consumed by anxiety and negative, recurring thought patterns. Being able to express these thoughts with someone makes a great difference.
2. Show patience and an understanding that depression isn’t something he can snap out of or will himself out of. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Someone battling depression is not lazy; he is not able to concentrate or motivate himself to move beyond the depression. Information about depression is available in many places—the more you understand and accept the disease as “real ailment” the more patience you will acquire.
3. Offer encouragement for her to seek the services of a professional, without her feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Assure your friend or family member that depression is a treatable, recoverable illness. You believing in her recovery is like handing her a life preserver in an ocean of despair. Just letting her know that depression is a treatable ailment with a probability, not simply a possibility, of recovery, may be the most significant message you can send.
4. Give reassurance and hope. Depression is a disorder that affects people by surrounding them with an all-consuming feeling of hopelessness. As a person who cares about your friend of family member, you have the ability to plant a seed of hope and hold on to it for her until she can have faith in herself again. Giving unlimited patience and care may become someone’s deciding factor between life and death. Reassurance that she is not facing this isolating battle alone makes a world of difference.
5. Make visits and phone calls. Depression forces a person to withdraw from life. Keeping in touch with your friend or loved one reminds him you’re there for him, even when he’s pulled farther away from you. A phone call is the gesture you’d use to respond to a friend with a physical ailment; make it the same expression you offer to a friend suffering from a mental ailment. Suggest you go for a short walk together. The time out can create a respite from unrelenting depressive thoughts. Exercise also renews the body, revitalizing it after emotional battles.
6. Send a note or card. A letter or card is a physical reminder that your friend or family member is in your thoughts and prayers. Your family member or friend can hold your words in her hands and reread them whenever she needs a tangible message of encouragement. Forming these “touch points” without even saying a word normalizes an isolating disease.
7. Prepare a meal of nourishment for a healthy body. Depression triggers two extreme responses to food. Someone dealing with depression either neglects his body’s needs or numbs his depression with unhealthy eating patterns. Delivering a healthy meal or snack is another way to show you care about your friend or family member.
Depression is as real as any physical illness and can be even more debilitating than a physical disease. We need to acknowledge, understand, and accept that friends and family members struggling with depression need the same loving concern and care that individuals dealing with physical illnesses receive.
Encouragement and support are gifts each of us can give to another—by you reaching out, the person you care about will have the chance to reach back.
Carol A. Kivler of Lawrence, NJ, is the founder of Courageous Recovery, a division of Kivler Communications designed to raise awareness to remove the stigma of mental illness and to instill hope in those who live with it. Through Courageous Recovery, Kivler’s goal is to change the way society and the medical profession views people living with mental illness. Her mission is to have society and medical professionals view individuals living with mental illness as courageous survivors who want to be accepted, not rejected; respected, not pitied; and admired, not feared. Carol considers herself a courageous survivor expert.
First diagnosed with mental illness in 1990, Kivler has suffered from four bouts of medication-resistant depression.
Presently, Carol has been living in recovery for the last 11 years. She is a highly respected professional speaker (CSP), author, communications consultant, corporate trainer (CMT), owner of Kivler Communications and passionate consumer advocate. Carol has an M.S. in Human Resource Education.
Please visit www.courageousrecovery.com for additional information.