If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
– Stephen Fry
Depression is one of the things that many people go through. I would even say many of us go through it, because I have, and I am sure that at some point in your life you will have had too.
And if you have not suffered from it before, perhaps it is hard to imagine what it would feel like. Sometimes you may even be dismissive of depression and its existence, you may – as I have been guilty of in the past – even think that sufferers are merely malingerers, unable to work and simply finding an excuse not to go to work or to get out of bed.
Depression is crippling. Those suffering may find that it gives life a somewhat negative filter. You look through it through a dark lens, and unfortunately when you are in that funk, it is very hard to get out of.
How does one lapse into depression? There are many reasons, but one of them is the result of going too hard, too long. Life has its various stresses, such as financial, family, work, and while at various points in life one of these stresses may surge and grow out of proportion in comparison to the others, and when you are under this stress and your attempts to initially fight it are rebuffed, then not only is it physically tiring, it is also mentally tiring as it sends your mind into overdrive, which tires you out, so eventually you may find that even though you may know what you need to do, you may actually lack the energy to do it, and the disconnect causes you depression, which becomes only sapping in itself.
Depression is something that must be worked through. It is a cycle of incremental gains, slow positivity, that helps one out of depression. And sometimes we find that the thing that has been causing us depression, is removed through time. For example, many men report depression in their thiries and forties, at at time when they have young children, when they experience life stresses of having to be the breadwinners while not being at home to see their child grow up, being away from home while wanting to be home, yet returning home only to have their spouses, tired from the stresses of looking after children, snap at them when they return. And they wonder why their wives suggested having children in the first place …? Do you know someone like that? This can easily cause someone to lapse into depression. But when children grow up, and these stresses are removed, the depression is lifted with time.
Perhaps it is worth considering the thought that depression is the disconnect of an overworked mind and a physically tired body. The mind has been going into overdrive and the body is tired, and the soul is unhappy because the body has no energy or mental will to do the things that need doing.
So whenever you encounter someone with depression, don’t offer advice. Don’t give them more mental triggers that tax their minds, and your advice, no matter how well-meaning, only drains their mental energy. Listen if your friend needs a listening ear, because in the course of talking through their troubles your friend may be relieved of them, and all the mental associations they spin off. You can help your friend mentally filter out the mental thoughts that cause depression. Help them do something physically active to work off the depression when they are ready.
To paraphrase Stephen Fry, if someone you know is feeling cold because it is snowing, you can’t help them by asking why it is snowing. Just huddle with them, keep them warm, until the snow passes. It is truly a noble thing that you can do.