By Royane Real

Author of "Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends"   

We all dream of having great friendships that last a lifetime.  We want to have friends who like us and support us through good times as well as bad times.  That is the kind of friendship we dream of, but it doesn’t always work out that way.   In reality, friendships are easy in the good times, but sometimes in the bad times even our best of friends don’t stick with us.

One of the most difficult experiences that can deeply affect a friendship is when one of the people in the friendship suffers from a deep case of depression.  When one person in the friendship becomes deeply depressed, it is hard for the other person to know how to handle the change in personality and the change in behaviour that happens to the depressed person.

The depressed person can seem to change personality in a matter of a few weeks, and in place of someone who used to be happy and outgoing, there is a person who is withdrawn and  uncommunicative.  Communication with a person who is depressed can be almost impossible.

For anyone who hasn’t experienced it, deep depression is a mystery.  A person who has never been deeply depressed may not understand how much depression changes the way a person acts and feels.

What is depression?  All of us feel sad or blue occasionally, but a true clinical depression is quite different from simply feeling blue.  Ordinary sadness is usually related to some event that has happened, such as the loss of a job or the death of a loved one.  In most cases, normal sadness will go away in a few weeks.

Clinical depression however, lasts a lot longer, and it may not be related to anything that has happened.  When people become depressed, they may feel sad, or they may feel completely empty.  This state feels absolutely horrible.  Nothing gives depressed people pleasure any more, not friends or loved ones, and not the activities they formerly enjoyed.  Depressed people often withdraw from their friends, yet they may insist that they are okay, that nothing is wrong.

They probably believe that nobody else in the world can understand them, so they think there is no point in trying to communicate with anyone.

Although depressed people often feel all alone and misunderstood, they also don’t want to spend time with other people.  Depressed people often stop doing the activities that they previously enjoyed, and they stop spending time with friends.  In fact, a withdrawal from friends and activities is one of the common signs of depression. 

If you have a friend who suffers from depression, don’t tell your friend to just snap out of it.  Don’t tell your friend that they have nothing to be depressed about.  This will only drive your friend away.  Clinical depression is a form of illness.  It’s as real as heart disease.   

You can’t tell a person to snap out of a depression any more than you could tell a person to snap out of having heart disease or cancer.

If you have a friend who is depressed, it can be hard to know what to do.  You probably want to be supportive, but you may also get tired of your friend always being so down. 

You may feel worn out, yet feel guilty about deserting your depressed friend. 

In many cases, the best thing you can do is to try to get your depressed friend to get some professional help.  Don’t think that you have to become your  depressed friend’s therapist.  Serious depression may need to be treated with an experienced professional therapist.  Several forms of talk therapy, such as cognitive therapy can help with depression.  Sometimes prescribed medication can be an effective treatment for depression.

In the meantime try to keep the lines of communication open with your friend.  You don’t need to try to cheer up your friend or tell them they have nothing to be depressed about.  That won’t work anyway.  Just keep calling them to remind them that you are there, and that you care. 

Offer to meet them for small social outings.  Don’t try to make big social plans, and don’t take it personally if your friend turns you down.  While they are in the grips of a depression, their brain won’t be functioning in a normal way.

There are better treatments today for depression than there have ever been, and in many cases people are able to recover completely from depression in a few months.

If you keep in contact with your friend, it’s quite possible that when the depression finally ends, your friendship may be stronger than ever.

This article was written by Royane Real.

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Learn to Be Popular - even if You're Shy and Lonely!

By Royane Real

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