How to Help a Friend or Family Member with Depression
What do you do when you’re not the one hurting?
My husband and I are both prone to depression, but they’re entirely different types.
I am prone to physical depression. I get stupid-headed, with intense brain fog. When I’m depressed, I’m incapable of making decisions. Stringing together plans with more than 2 steps is beyond me. I will sit on the couch for hours, trapped, and unable to decide what to do next. But through it all, I remain optimistic, cheerful, and happy. I just can’t think.
He is prone to more traditional emotional depression. He becomes pessimistic, morose, and despondent. When he’s depressed, he will frequently be unable to get out of bed. If he does manage to drag himself out of bed, he’ll play on one of his devices for hours. Playing video games or watching TV isn’t as bad as reading the news, which only makes him worse.
Unlike my depressed brain, which is incapable of thinking at all, he thinks too well. No matter what he sees or hears, he can think of a million ways it can end badly.
Identifying depression
Everyone’s depression manifests itself with a different set of symptoms and behaviors. That’s one of the reasons why it can take months to be diagnosed the first time you experience it.
My physical depression identifiers
Now that we know what to look for, my physical depression is easy to spot. I’m a generally opinionated person — as anyone who writes for a living has to be. So he knows if my answers to a series of questions become “I don’t know” or “whatever”, I’m probably depressed.
It has to be a series of questions since I’m an incredibly literal and precise person. “I don’t know” is my go-to answer for poorly phrased or unclear questions. Although I usually follow up with clarifying questions of my own.
Another dead giveaway for physical depression is failing to eat. Most people have no idea how many decisions and process steps are required to prepare a meal. Habitual meals, such as having the same breakfast every morning, are okay. But dinner?
Maybe you plan a week’s meals in advance. We don’t have nearly that level of predictability in our lives. Even the fallback of “Nuke a frozen dinner” has too many decisions when depressed.
His emotional depression identifiers
He also has tell-tale signs of depression. The first is not getting out of bed until late in the afternoon, if at all. Unfortunately, this is not as obvious as it could be. I can’t always tell the difference between him sleeping and meditating. And he closes the bedroom door for both, to keep the cats from bothering him.
The second is attitude. He’ll call my attention over and over again to what is wrong with the world. Politics. The economy. The general collapse of civilization, global warming, and the cultural obsession with celebrities.
My response is, “Is there anything you or I can do about that?” If there is, it’s not depression. It’s his mission of wanting to make the world a better place for everyone. But if he admits there’s nothing he can do about it, and still wants to discuss it, it’s a sign of depression.
The other change in his attitude is switching from optimism to pessimism. He’s normally driven to achieve the goals he envisions will move us toward a better world. He might start work as early as 3 am, or work through most of the night. When he’s depressed, though, he becomes resigned. What’s the point of doing anything, when nothing will ever change?
Helping the depressed person
The first and most important thing you can do is to be understanding. No one chooses to be depressed. It’s a switch in the brain brought on by a neurochemical cocktail. They can no more “snap out of it” than a color-blind person could start seeing normal colors.
Helping with physical depression
There are four things that we’ve found that help with my physical depression.
- Get enough sleep. If he notices I’m depressed, he’ll make sure he coaches me to bed early. Because left on my own, I’m not always capable of figuring out the chain of actions needed to make that happen. I’ll stay up late because I can’t figure out how to go to bed.
- Eat right. If I’ve had junk food, fast food, or too many high-carb meals, he’ll offer to pick me up something healthy to eat. Healthy in this case means something that does not trigger any of my many food allergies. Allergic responses make my depression worse.
- Take SAM-e. I get one of these over-the-counter pills in my vitamins each day. I don’t always take my vitamins, though. Sometimes we forget to make up pill packs. Sometimes we forget to bring them with us when we’re out and about. If I’ve missed a few days, he’ll give me two pills to jump-start the effect. Otherwise, he’ll give me one.
- Simplify all interactions. I mentioned that my main symptom is getting stupid-headed. I’m incapable of answering a question like, “Would you rather have Italian or Chinese?” That requires holding too many thoughts in my head at once. Instead, he’ll ask “Do you want Italian for dinner?” I can handle yes/no questions. Unlike the first three, this doesn’t help cure the depression, but it makes it easier for me to manage.
Helping with emotional depression
Unfortunately, emotional depression isn’t as easy to fix as physical depression. He will usually rebound in a few days or weeks on his own. He fixates on something positive with as much force as he fixated on the negative. That swings him back into his usual optimistic frame of mind.
The downside of this is that even after 12 years together, I have no way of predicting what the thing will be. They never seem all that positive to me. But to him, they change everything. All I can do is help him to remain in a position where he is exposed to possible positives.
He is also unusual in his family, in that he’s the only one that doesn’t need psychiatric medication. His decades of meditation and devotion to a higher purpose makes him more resilient.
So if you’re looking for how to help someone with depression, add “See a therapist.”
That said, these are the things we’ve found that help my husband when he’s depressed.
- EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a method of using bilateral (side-to-side) stimulation. It helps to process “stuck” memories, which may contribute to the current feelings. We have a set of “tappers” like the ones used in person by our counselor. You should always have a trained professional help you until you know how you react. If someone like Prince Harry uses EMDR to cope with his memories of Princess Diana’s death, it might be worth a try.
- Exercise. It’s hard enough to get my husband out of bed when he’s depressed. But if he does five or ten minutes on the Power Plate, that may be enough to spark some positive brain chemicals.
- Sauna. We have a far infrared sauna. In his normal state, a half-hour in the sauna can give rise to euphoria. That will last for a few hours after the sauna. When he’s depressed, it can help boost him toward normal.
- Massage. We also have a massage chair. A session or two in that will often relax him and put him to sleep. Unlike regular sleep, which is prone to anxiety-ridden dreams, this is deep and healing.
- Inspirational news. Reading news that may have something positive in it is crucial to ending his depression. Sooner or later, he finds “the thing” that inspires him into optimism. He’ll stay away from anything that could worsen his depression. (See the list of bad topics above.) Instead, he’ll read about technology, the future, space development, and other good topics. Medium is an excellent source of good topics.
- Vedic chants. He subscribes to the Sattva app from The Art of Living that offers many chants in Sanskrit. They are supposed to provide many specific benefits, depending on the chant.
Conclusion
Depression is a highly individualized condition. The causes and symptoms may be primarily physical, emotional, or both.
If this is the first time someone is suffering from depression, it is helpful to see a therapist. This could be a psychiatrist, psychologist, or EMDR practitioner.
Once you have been through the cycle of depression a few times, you’ll know what will help you. Often, as someone looking in from the outside, we don’t know how to help unless you tell us.
What we can do for you is suggest that you may be depressed. One of the side effects of being depressed is often that self-awareness is muted. The depressed person may not notice they’re depressed, and just think they’re tired or sad.
My husband and I are prone to different types of depression. As a result, we treat each type differently. We need different types of help from each other.
I hope our lists of things that help us will give you some ideas for how to treat your own — or someone else’s — depression.
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