You feel incredibly bad for someone that he or she is depressed. You want to do something, but when you ask that person what you can do, he or she doesn’t know either. There must be something you can do, right?
You increasingly hear that someone is depressed or has a burnout. That’s not surprising at all, considering the pressure that is on everyone these days. When someone is down, it is quite difficult to cheer them up. Still, there are a number of things you can do for someone who is depressed.
Immerse yourself in depression
If you know as much about it as possible, you can empathize much better with how someone feels. For example, you read that depression is not just an affectation and that not everything is ‘so bad’.
DO NOT give advice
You probably want to help someone get over their depression so badly that you try to give advice. When someone is having a hard time, we want to help them. It is also true that depressed people may need guidance, but don’t just tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do to make them feel better. But when you come up with all kinds of advice, it can actually make someone feel even more like a failure.
Suggest taking a walk
Depressed people often find it difficult to commit themselves to anything. Exercise naturally produces endorphins, but it is such a task to go to the gym, let alone exercise. Still, it’s good for someone to get a change of scenery. So suggest taking a walk. You can walk as far from home as anyone wants. Make sure you formulate it as an open question so that he or she can also say no.
Just be there
You can give all the help in the world to the person you care about, recite all the advice from self-help books and buy all kinds of gifts in the hope that someone will feel better, but at the end of the day, what matters is that you are there. Sometimes someone doesn’t even feel the need to talk or do anything, but just your presence helps.
Don’t criticize someone
No matter how despondent it may make you that someone is often down, don’t criticize them. Don’t get angry when someone doesn’t feel like doing something for the umpteenth time. It doesn’t help the situation. It could only make the person who is depressed feel worse.
Don’t make it smaller than it is
Don’t dismiss someone’s feelings as if they are nothing and certainly don’t let the words ‘it’s not that bad after all’ slip out of your mouth. Then someone feels completely misunderstood and perhaps even worse because no one seems to understand.
Don’t compare someone’s situation with another
Unless you have been depressed yourself, you can tell the person what it was like for you. But don’t start about your friend’s brother’s girlfriend. It’s so far away from you and even further away from the person you’re talking to. Moreover, it does not change his or her own situation.
Don’t question their medication use
One chooses to take medication and the other doesn’t want to know about it. Whatever one’s decision is, don’t question it. Don’t start talking about medications if someone doesn’t want to take them, and don’t tell someone that they might be able to cut back on the pills.
Give a hug
If you don’t know what to say, that’s okay. Give someone a hug. This way, the person really gets the feeling that you want to be there for him or her. Even if someone doesn’t hug back enthusiastically, it can do someone good.
Do you know someone close to you who is depressed? How do you deal with that?
