Dos and Don'ts for Dealing with Depression

Recently, I asked a friend on Facebook for details about an upcoming event. When he didn't respond right away, I figured that he was still ironing out the details and would let me know when they were finalized. Much to my disappointment, less than a week later I saw pictures of the event and realized that the plans had been finalized but never relayed to me. I sent him a message expressing my disappointment, and his response to that message was full of false accusations and triggers. Though the rational part of my brain said that I likely had just caught him in a bad moment, his words still sent me into a depressive funk that I still am having a hard time shaking. Once I was calm, I forgave him, but I also realized that I needed to do something I had considered doing for quite some time but never got around to: write a post about how to respond to those with depression. So here they are in no particular order, the dos and don'ts of dealing with someone in your life who has depression.

DO:

• Hug them: The power of physical touch can spread warmth into the places of our soul that the depression is keeping cold. The pressure of a good hug can also help to regulate our sobbing when we're unable to stop it ourselves. The night in question, I struggled to calm down enough to fall asleep until my cat came and laid on my chest, providing enough pressure that I could slow my breathing enough to stop crying.
• Understand that it's an illness: I cannot stress this one enough. Too often, people see depression as just sadness, and think that the person should be able to snap out of it, but it's more than that. Depression is more like a poison of the mind that obliterates rational thought, and as a result, many people need to take medicine that blocks that mental poison from taking effect. It's not less of a disease just because it is a disease of the mind rather than the body.
• Apologize: Sometimes you will say something that you think is perfectly fine, but they will take it the wrong way. Though offending them was not your intention, you still need to apologize for the offense. Additionally, it should go without saying that you apologize when your words were meant to hurt them.
• Accept their apologies: I'll freely admit that sometimes I can be a bit of a butthead when I'm depressed. Being angry feels like something I can control more than being sad does. In the heat of the moment, I have said and done things that were stupid and selfish. When the smoke clears, I quickly realize that I was making an ass of myself, and I apologize. However, if my apology is not accepted, it can easily push me back into that place, and I may revert once again to that hurtful and vindictive version of myself. Forgiveness is always the best idea, but when the person apologizing has depression, it becomes even more crucial.
• Listen: This is one of the best things you can do when a friend or family member is feeling depressed. Depression settles in like a weight around our heart, and talking about and crying about it helps us to dismantle and throw off the weight. When the person we are talking to isn't engaged and isn't listening, or if they keep interrupting us with solutions, we can't get rid of the weight of depression, and we can't get to feeling better.
• Pray for them: James 5:16 states, "the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective." Use some of your prayer power to help them get the power they need to break out of their depression. Doing so will let them know that they don't have to fight this alone.
• Take time to care for them: When someone is depressed, they need to know that their friends and family care about them. The best way to do this is to spend time with them, listening to them, praying for them, and making sure they know that they are not alone.
• Realize that depression is just one part of them: There is a good reason why I have been referring to them as people with depression. They have depression, but depression does not have them. I am a funny, intelligent, and creative woman who happens to feel depressed sometimes. Helping them to bring out the other aspects of their personality will help them drown out depression's destructive voice.
• See past the jokes: Since Robin Williams committed suicide two years ago, America has become more aware of how often the funniest people can be the most depressed. I have seen this in my own life. I am someone who loves to laugh, and the majority of the time, my laughter is completely genuine. There are times, however, when I'm feeling depressed and cover it up by laughing. During those times, those laughs are loud and shallow, whereas normally, I laugh at a fairly reasonable volume and my laughs incorporate my entire body. When dealing with someone with depression, watch them to see if their laughter is genuine or a mask to hide the fact that they are feeling depressed.
• Encourage them to exercise: At one point in the movie Legally Blonde, Elle Woods says of the defendant after discovering that she exercises, "Exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't shoot their husbands." The same is true of those with depression. Endorphins are the body's natural anti-depressant, so encouraging someone to get to the gym when they're feeling depressed can help them recover much faster.

DON'T:

• Assume the worst: Remember what I said earlier about anger being an emotion I feel I can control? When I'm in that place, I will often say and do some hurtful things, but it doesn't mean I hate whoever I say or do them to.  I'm also not blaming that person for how I feel. This can even happen when I'm not trying to hide behind the mask of anger, as the aforementioned incident proves. Assuming the worst only piles up more guilt that will hit me the second the mask drops.
• Tell them others have it worse: We already know that. In fact, we've probably already said that to ourselves before anyone else ever says it to us, and chances are, when we said it, we told ourselves we were stupid for feeling depressed when we had no real reason to be. When you say it to that person, you're just adding one more voice telling them they're stupid.
• Act like you're too busy to care about them: Depression is an isolating disease, and when you act as though you can't be bothered to care about the person in your life who has it, you isolate them further. I understand that you may not have the time to do anything huge, but it doesn't take much time to tell them you love them, you'll be praying for them, and you will talk to them some more as soon as you have more time. Part of what bothered me so much about the message I received was that he claimed that he didn't have the time to tell me when the event was, but he had the time to compose a hurtful rant that broke my heart. 
• Call them negative: Just like telling them others have it worse, this is something that people with depression tell themselves, so saying it to them does nothing more than add more shame to what they're feeling. Additionally, this can become a part of how they come to see themselves even when they're not feeling depressed. Having depression is negative enough, don't add a negative label to the person themself. 
• Use the word "never": Using this word in what you say to a person with depression is like slamming a door in their face when they're halfway through it: it hurts, it breaks something in them, and the pain does not go away for a long time. The only difference is that physical injuries heal a lot faster than emotional. In this case, it won't until the thing you said would never happen actually happens. Apologizing will help immensely, but there's still a chance that the phrase with the word never will stick in their mind until proven untrue.
• Ignore them: Just like acting like you are too busy to care for them, ignoring them isolates them further than the disease does on its own. In the aforementioned incident, I realized later that what I thought was a reasonable expression of my disappointment did include one point that was a bit biting, so I apologized. Just like with the question about the event, my apology was not responded to. This lack of response proves to me that in order to get a response from him, I need to anger him in some way. Although his words hurt me, I have forgiven him,  and care about him enough that I don't want to do that.
• Assume they're faking: Too often, people with depression don't get the help they need because when they try to, others assume they're faking. Yes, sometimes people fake illnesses to get sympathy, but depression is a serious business. If the person is actually faking, that will be revealed soon enough, but if they're not, you could just be saving someone's life.
• Tell them to kill themselves: This should go without saying, but unfortunately, it has to be said. Many stories of bullied kids who commit suicide include one such comment. A mind under the effects of depression is vulnerable to suggestion, so it's highly detrimental to suggest something so horrible.
• Tell them they're not praying hard enough: Depression is a disease just like any other, and while prayer can be a great help to those who have it, the continued presence of it is not an indication of not praying hard enough. Some people need medicine to regulate the symptoms, while others can keep it in check by prayer alone, but that doesn't mean that those who take medicine aren't praying hard enough. The ability to control depression by prayer alone has more to do with the strength of the depression rather than the faith of the person battling it.
• Reject them: Those battling depression need to know that others care about them and want to see them beat it. When others reject them, the isolation of the disease can compound until they begin to think that there is no longer a reason to live. Accepting those with depression helps to assure that they feel supported, and can save their life.

I know this post was long, but I thank you for sticking with me until the end of it. As someone with depression, it hurts me to know that so many misunderstand it. Knowing how to recognize and help someone with depression is the best way to save that person's life and their sanity.