When someone you love is depressed

• Do reach out as much as possible. Provide opportunities to participate in fun activities – attending hockey games, going for a walk, or attending family events.

• Do keep your expectations low. Just extending the invitation is not a guarantee that it will be taken – or even that it should be. Remember that you are not responsible for that person’s happiness; only for inviting them to share in your own.

• Do be a sympathetic ear, within your own very human limitations. Although it can sometimes feel that a depressed person has the same conversation, or types of conversation, over again, having someone listen from time to time does have a positive effect.

• Do recognize progress. For someone who has been severely depressed, even getting out of bed two days in a row, or showering, can be progress. There’s no need to be a cheerleader, but it can help to quietly comment on the improvement that you see.

• Don’t take it personally. This can be the hardest advice to follow when your depressed twenty-something son won’t get out of bed or your partner seems to have no interest in sex – or you. But in most cases depression truly is an imbalance in a person’s biochemistry, and even the most successful people with the best relationships can succumb.

• Don’t criticize or be negative. Not only will this discourage the person from accepting your support, it only feeds the depressive state of mind.

• Don’t let yourself get burnt out. It is fine to take a break and enjoy events without the depressed individual along.

• Don’t try to “reason” the depressed individual out of his or her feelings. It really won’t work.

• Don’t ignore signs that the individual may be so depressed that he or she may commit suicide. If you suspect that may be the case, get your family doctor or other medical professional involved right away.

Like other serious diseases, depression takes its toll not only on the patient, but on the patient’s family. Even if you are not the person formally suffering from depression, you are affected. Be sure to get the information and support you need to make it.

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