How To Talk To a Depressed Friend

“I’ve been diagnosed with depression.”

This is one of the things you don’t want to hear from a friend. When a close friend of mine opened up to me, I was shocked. Immediately after I hugged him, thoughts started racing through my mind.

What am I supposed to say? What can I do to help him? I don’t want to make him feel bad! I want to be there for him and show him I care!

Unluckily, we live so far away from each other that we only meet once or twice a year in person. I declared I’d always be there for him and support him anyways.

Now, one year later, we’ve met again.

Reflecting on the past year, I came to an unfortunate conclusion:

I’d done so little to help him.

We text weekly, asking each other how we’re doing. We have phone calls from time to time. It’s something, I know. Nonetheless, I often feel guilty because I feel like I could and should do more than that.

Still, when I met him last week, he told me I was the one person in his life who was always there for him.

Even though I lived hundreds of miles away, I was the one who supported him the most. While I felt relieved for my own sake, hearing it made me sad, too.

If I — who does so little — am the one supporting him the most, what are his other friends doing? The ones living nearby?

He told me. They do nothing.

He had opened up about his depression to them a few months prior. They were full of hugs and promises, offering their unlimited support. However, none of them acted upon it.

• They rarely text him. If they do, they never ask how he’s doing.
• They never make the time to visit him in person.
• They spend less time with him than before his confession.
• They completely ignore his mental health issue.

His friends abandoned him even though he was struggling so much. Terrible people, you must think.

Yet, I’m sure they aren’t bad people.

Otherwise, every depressed person must have lots of terrible human beings as friends. Because so many people suffering from depression report being abandoned by peers. What’s the reason for that?

The answer is simple: fear, insecurity, and a lack of knowledge. If you don’t know how to talk to a depressed friend, it feels like walking on eggshells around them.

You don’t want to hurt them.

You don’t want to say something that would make things worse.

Since we’re never taught how to talk to a mentally ill person, we’re afraid of doing something wrong. This article is supposed to help out anyone who has a depressed friend and is unsure how to interact with them. These are the fundamental dos and don’ts of talking to a depressed friend.

Dos and Dont’s of Talking To a Depressed Friend

Do Listen

Instead of thinking about what you’re supposed to say next, focus on what they’re saying.

We all know how hard it is to open up to someone. If the listener is fidgeting around or their mind seems to be wandering off, it makes you feel terrible.

Show them you care by listening attentively.

Don’t force them to open up to you!

Let them do the talking. They decided to open up to you. Thus, they decide to which extent. Depression is a very private matter. It’s about one’s innermost workings. Forcing them to say more or probe for more information should be avoided.

Of course, asking questions to better understand what they’re going through is fine. You shouldn’t turn it into an interrogation, though. As soon as you notice they’re getting uncomfortable, drop the topic.

Do offer support — That you can realistically give them!

The situation described above, where friends are full of promises but never follow up on them, is common. Most of the time, they make promises they can’t keep, because they have their own life and their own problems.

That’s why you should ask yourself: what can I realistically do to support them?

If you’re working full-time in a different state, daily or even weekly visits are unrealistic. The same goes for daily phone calls.

I know that if you care about the person, you want to help them as much as possible. Yet, promising more than you can give will either burn you out or leave you with a nagging bad conscience. Your friend will be disappointed and feel abandoned by you. In the end, neither of you will benefit from that.

Instead, support them in a way that is realistically possible for both of you. For example, you could schedule a weekly phone call. Same time, same day every week. In the time between calls, you could text them and ask how they’re doing.

Don’t offer advice on how to solve their problems

We’re used to solving problems. Whether it’s in our jobs or our private life, we’re confronted with problems daily. A beloved person suffering is a huge problem. Thus, we want to fix it.

But! Unless you’re a trained mental health professional, you have no clue how to fix it correctly. Unqualified advice about mental health often has the opposite effect and makes matters worse.

It doesn’t even have to be disrespectful (“Grow a pair”). Giving them well-meant advice like to “start exercising” or to “spend more time with friends” can be harmful, too. That’s because they’re based on what works for increasing the mood of a mentally stable person. To a mentally ill person, however, such advice cannot be applied.

It’s comparable to telling a cancer patient to “drink more water” because it helps you, a healthy person, to feel more energized.

Do ask if they’re in therapy already — offer your help to arrange an appointment if they aren’t!

Since low energy levels are one of the main symptoms of depression, getting help can be too exhausting for some people. Making a simple phone call to ask for an appointment may seem too hard to do to them.

That’s why you should offer your help. Simply ask them whether they’re getting professional help already. If they are, you can feel a bit more relieved. If they aren’t, offer to make the phone call for them.

It’s of fundamental importance to get professional help. Studies show that psychotherapy is highly effective in treating depression.

Now, if you’re still unsure how to talk to them, just ask!

Ask them how they’d like to be treated!

For some people talking about their depression helps them a lot. Others want to be treated like a a healthy person avoid the topic.

For most people, it’s the middle way that works — sometimes they feel like talking about it, other times they want to forget their problems and distract themselves.

Whatever their preference, it helps all of them to know that there’s somebody who cares. Be that person.