Helping Someone You Love Survive Depression

Posted July 27, 2020

Helping Someone You Love Survive Depression

How can you help someone you love survive depression?

You can help your loved one by doing the following:

Being A Good Listener
Helping Them Find a Good Counsellor
Connecting Them To A Family Doctor, if They Don’t Have One Already
Encourage Their Self-Care Strategies
Learning to Educate Yourself on Depression & How to Help Them
Assist Them with Chores
Be Patient with Them
Reach Out Regularly so They Know They Aren’t Alone
Learn to Recognize the Symptoms of Depression
Be Aware of the Warning Signs

You’re not alone if you have loved ones with Depression. Many of us have friends or family members that live with depression and may be struggling.

According to the most recent estimates from the CAMH, just in any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental illness or addiction problem. By the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have—or have had—a mental illness.

Depression may be experienced differently, by different people.

If someone you love is having symptoms of depression they may:

10 Things You Can Do

Make time to listen.

Make a point of letting your loved one know that your there for them and want to help. So something that might be helpful would be sharing how concerned you have been about them. Maybe even asking how you can help them or is there anything that you can do to make it easier for them. They may not have any ideas and if that’s the case, then you could offer to do some house chores for them, or help them de-clutter their living room. Also, ask them if you could assist them with their laundry. You may notice that there are certain things in their home that aren’t getting done because they don’t have the energy to do it because there so tired.

When listening keep in mind that not everyone wants solutions or advice that they might just want someone to listen to them.

Try using the following active listening skills:

Ask questions with the intention to learn more and to get more information instead of assuming you understand what they mean.
Validate, Confirm, Be Curious, Paraphrase, Ask Questions of their feelings. You might say, “That sounds really difficult. I’m sorry to hear that.” “It sounds like your saying that you’re struggling with being alone right now, is this correct?”
Use your body language to show your interested, that you care and are engaged in the conversation.

2. Help them find a Good counsellor

You may have a loved one that isn’t even aware that they are struggling with depression or know how to find the support for themselves. It can be a daunting task to search and find the right therapist for yourself that’s why it may be helpful to assist someone who is struggling in finding a suitable counsellor.

If your friend seems interested in counseling, offer to help them review possible counsellors. You can help your friend to make a list of things to ask these counsellors and things they want to bring up in their first session.

Encouraging them and supporting them to make that first appointment can be so helpful if they’re struggling.

3. Connecting them to a family doctor if they don’t already have one.

They may need to explore the possibility of using medication for their depression but this is something they should discuss with their family doctor. Sometimes medication can be necessary because of the lack of serotonin in their brains. Serotonin is the “feel good” or “happy” hormone”. It is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Its biological function is complex and multifaceted, modulating mood, cognition, reward, learning, memory, and numerous physiological processes such as vomiting and vasoconstriction.

On a bad day, your friend might not feel like leaving the house. Depression can zap energy and increase the desire to self-isolate.

If they say something like, “I think I’m going to cancel my therapy appointment,” encourage them to stick with it.

You might say, “Last week you said your session was really productive and you felt a lot better afterward. What if today’s session helps, too?”

The same goes for medication. If your friend wants to stop taking medication because of unpleasant side effects, be supportive, but encourage them to talk to their psychiatrist about switching to a different antidepressant or getting off medication entirely.

Abruptly stopping antidepressants without the supervision of a healthcare provider can have serious consequences.

4. Encourage their self-care strategies.

Frequently, one of the symptoms of depression is lacking motivation, feeling tired or fatigued and your loved one may lack the energy to maintain their self-care. It can be useful to invite them to have a quick shower, or that you’ll help with brushing their hair for them;etc. It’s nice to want to help others however, it’s also good to have healthy boundaries and not help too much where a person can become too dependent on you. So please don’t drop everything your doing to be by their side or they won’t know how to do things on their own. Know what your limits. Also know your ability to help your loved one because being around someone who is depressed can be emotionally draining and take it’s toll.

If you put all your energy into supporting your friend, you’ll have very little left for yourself. And if you’re feeling burned out or frustrated, you won’t be much help to your friend.

5. Learning to education yourself on depression & how to help them.

Imagine having to educate each person in your life about a mental or physical health issue you’re experiencing — explaining it over and over again. Sounds exhausting, right?

You can talk to your friend about their specific symptoms or how they’re feeling, but avoid asking them to tell you about depression in general terms.

Read up on the symptoms, causes, diagnostic criteria, and treatments on your own.

While people experience depression differently, being familiar with the general symptoms and terminology can help you have more in-depth conversations with your friend.

6. Assist them with chores.

Don’t do everything for them, if they can do it themselves but if they are having a hard time getting started walk along side them with encouragement and assist them to begin the process of purging, organizing and cleaning.

7. Be patient with them.

Depression usually improves with treatment, but it can be a slow process that involves some trial and error. They may have to try a few different counselling approaches or medications before they find one that helps their symptoms. Even successful treatment doesn’t always mean depression goes away entirely. Your friend may continue to have symptoms from time to time.

In the meantime, they’ll probably have some good days and some bad days. Avoid assuming a good day means they’re “cured,” and try not to get frustrated if a string of bad days makes it seem like your friend will never improve.

Depression doesn’t have a clear recovery timeline. Expecting your friend to return to their usual self after a few weeks in therapy won’t help either of you.

Learn to let go of having to change them or control the situation. They need to change it for themselves and all we can do is support and encourage them through this difficult time.

8. Reach out regularly so they know their not alone.

Often when an individual is struggling with depression, can often feel alone or isolate themselves. We can help by calling them regularly to let them know you care or that your thinking about them.

9. Learn to recognize the symptoms of depression.

This is important so that you can better understand what your loved one is going through. It helps to be more empathetic and helps them to feel less alone. Being educated on this topic can assist us in knowing how we can help them.

Depression often involves sadness or a low mood, but it also has other, less well-known symptoms.

For example, many people don’t realize depression can involve:

anger and irritability
confusion, memory problems, or difficulty focusing
excessive fatigue or sleep issues
physical symptoms such as stomach distress, frequent headaches, or back and other muscle pain

Your friend may often seem to be in a bad mood, or feel exhausted a lot of the time. Try to keep in mind that what they’re feeling is still part of depression, even if it doesn’t fit into the stereotypical versions of depression.

10. Be aware of the warning signs of depression: