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Helping a friend with depression
Matt_S
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a friend here at college who, as of about a year ago, went through a very traumatic experience involving his parents and who has now ended up with depression.
Short to say, I'm worried for him. He does see a doctor and does get medication. However, he is pretty moody - as a person with depression is. From what I've heard, his parents aren't really being too helpful and he told a friend and I last night that the only thing that is keeping him from killing himself is his long-distance girlfriend. I learned during the summer that he already tried to kill himself a few times last semester by drinking a ton of booze and hoping to get alcohol poisoning.
I just want to be a good friend to him. What I've been doing is trying to sympathize with him and telling him that if he ever wants to talk or ever needs someone to listen to him, I'm always available. I'm not sure what to do, past that. Are there things I should be saying? Things that I shouldn't be saying? Any other ways that I can help him get through this? I graduate in about a month and will be moving away, so there's nothing I can really do in person for much longer, but I'd like to help him out as much as I can while I'm still here.
If anyone has gone through this before or has any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Short to say, I'm worried for him. He does see a doctor and does get medication. However, he is pretty moody - as a person with depression is. From what I've heard, his parents aren't really being too helpful and he told a friend and I last night that the only thing that is keeping him from killing himself is his long-distance girlfriend. I learned during the summer that he already tried to kill himself a few times last semester by drinking a ton of booze and hoping to get alcohol poisoning.
I just want to be a good friend to him. What I've been doing is trying to sympathize with him and telling him that if he ever wants to talk or ever needs someone to listen to him, I'm always available. I'm not sure what to do, past that. Are there things I should be saying? Things that I shouldn't be saying? Any other ways that I can help him get through this? I graduate in about a month and will be moving away, so there's nothing I can really do in person for much longer, but I'd like to help him out as much as I can while I'm still here.
If anyone has gone through this before or has any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Matt_S on
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The other biggie that gets brought up here, aside from counselling and medication is exercise. Take him out to play some squash or kick a footy around or pump iron or whatever you guys are into.
Give him positive reinforcement. Not naive positive crap that depressed people tend to snort at but when he says anything bad about himself, nod, empathise and try to find him the silver lining in what he said. It's actually an exercise taught to depressed people to do themselves, but yeah. The worst you can do is some flippant shit like "Just get over it/snap out of it/not that big a deal/you'll be right" that only tremendously thick-headed dullards tend to say, and you clearly don't sound like that sort of person.
I am in a depression right now, have been for a long time and I've got a couple of psychologists in the family, so that's my credence to this situation.
I dealt with many such people in the past and while everyone is different, there are some basic pointers I guess. You may notice a lot of them are common sense, but they are not taken seriously enough most of the time.
The very best thing you can do for your friend is to listen. Genuinely. People tell me I'm a great conversationalist when in fact what I did for most of the chat was listen to what they were saying. Letting him unload, uninterrupted and without judgment, all the shit that's on his mind is likely the very best thing you can do for him. The more outlets he has, the better. Be one of them. Don't obsess about giving advice, just listen.
Don't sympathize. Empathize. Put yourself in his shoes, in personality and in situation, and try to figure out what he must be going through. How he must see the world. Determine, from there, what you think would be the most effective ways to offer him some sort of comfort, whether in words or in action.
When he is talking about his feelings or situation, don't argue with him. If he says "I am worthless," don't say "no you're not." Ask him why he thinks that way and then, instead of telling him he's wrong, give him an alternate, more positive conclusion to be drawn from his evidence. An alternate viewpoint, if you will. (This is where the need for empathy is greatest, because you have to understand WHY he is thinking what he thinks.) Then ask him what he thinks of your viewpoint.
When being a peer counselor, the best thing you can do is help lead your friend to a different conclusion from the one they've drawn based on what they've gone through. As a light and easy example, my mother's best friend recently passed away and my mom was upset that she couldn't say goodbye because they were in different countries (though the best friend was in the hospital and my mom was planning a trip down even before the best friend passed away). I proceeded to remind her that her friend had a lot of respect for my mom, didn't she? and would she have wanted my mom to see her in a hospital with tubes and wires hooked up to machines... or would she rather that my mom remember her as a jovial, vivacious, passionate person? I helped lead my mom to the possibility that maybe, just maybe her friend ended things on her terms because she didn't want to give my mom a chance to see her in such a weakened state.
This cheered my mom up significantly, as it did help her realize not that her friend loved her (that was never in any doubt), but that there is certainly the possibility that a person of her best friend's strong character would have wanted things to end on her own terms... and they very likely did. I was able to identify this as being a key thing for my mom simply because I picked up the nuances in her chosen words while she was telling me about her friend's passing and, well, because I can very easily empathize with my mom.
Now, obviously, your friend's emotional state is much more serious than my mom's but there are parallels to be drawn all the same.
It's little things like that that you can use to pull a friend out of a funk. Empathize to try to find the core reasons for their mood or perspective, then help them connect the dots in a different way to draw a different, happier picture.
As for things beyond the deeply emotional, get him out of the house. As theSquid said, exercise or even volunteer work will go a long way to improving someone's mood.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
This is the best thing you can do. My dad died when I was in high school, leading to a serious, long-lasting bout with depression and I was consistently frustrated by the people that would limply attempt to offer their condolences and sympathy without actually empathizing. The talks I appreciated most were not with the people who were trying to make me feel better via blatant emotional flagellation, but rather those who were able to offer a fresh perspective on things. If anything, having a different viewpoint gets the depressed party out of their own head, even if temporarily, which is an incredibly valuable thing.
1. Spend time with me just doing normal stuff, so I didn't sit around alone thinking about how shitty life was. Movies, games, sports and exercise etc.
2. Allow me to be a little bit needy at times. That is, call the pizza guy when we're ordering food, offer to drive if I'm being a lazy ass.
3. Like theSquid said, don't agree with any negativity or tell him its no big deal. Just consistently listen to and gently redirect any self-depricating comments even if they get tiresome and repetitive.
4. Probably try and get him involved in some clubs that maybe he can continue once you're gone.
First, it's an outlet. They release their emotions by verbally expressing them and they take comfort in knowing someone is listening and absorbing what they feel.
Second, and more importantly, it is therapeutic in that when someone hears their feelings and thoughts VOICED (i.e., put into spoken words for the intent of being interpreted by someone else), they go through the process of sorting through their emotions and trying to express them in a coherent manner. Then, on top of that, hearing themselves speak verbally on their issues allows what they're saying to be re-processed through your brain... it sounds flimsy, but I mean, think about how you process things that are said aloud and heard, versus trying to muck through it in your own head. Things get filtered through a different part of your brain, so you are better able to look at it in a different way.
Of course, the second bit is only useful if the person is genuinely trying to express what they feel, and not everyone is good at doing that. It's your job, as the friend, to fill in the gaps. Listen to what they say, note what's missing from their "rant" so to speak, and repeat it back to them with some of those gaps filled via empathy and conjecture. See what they say. Even if they say you're off the mark, it helps them think about what they're feeling in a more logical light.
Try and actually hang out with the person a lot, maybe. I know that being around my friends helps tremendously, but to actually get the motivation to do so, I have to catch myself when I'm just starting to slip into a downswing. Because if I don't, when I am truly depressed all I do is go to work and go home. It is really hard to even make myself go to work, except I need money. I've dealt with depression problems my entire life, and I at least have gotten to the point where I can force myself to do the really necessary things, like do my job. Eating and sleeping are another matter entirely, though.
One last suggestion, from personal experience, I tend to forget to eat, or not be motivated enough to eat when I feel like shit. Maybe make sure your friend is eating at least a little bit too. And exercise really is helpful, but it can be hard to get yourself to do so, when you feel really bad.