Let’s not make any bones about this. I suffer from depression and sometimes it can be out of control. Like bisexuality, and any type of sexuality, depression is not a thing that is discussed openly enough. Let’s face it the very word depression is depressing if you hear it often enough. But the fact is that it exists and in this day and age, no matter whether it’s because of the food that we eat, the air that we breathe or the lives that we live, like conditions such as ADD and ADHD, it exists a LOT. Is it more common than it was in days gone by or is it more frequently reported? I don’t know. But for those of you who don’t know what depression is like, it’s very hard for you to be a supporter or a friend of someone who does.
I’m going to write this from the angle of what is required from a friend who tries to support someone going through depression. I think it’s an important thing. Many people think they are a great friend, but when the going gets tough for their friends, then they hit the road. That is not a friend.
There’s a number of things to consider. If you are friends with a person for a very long time and then discover that your friend is having difficulty and is depressed, you have to think very carefully how to handle the situation. It’s not easy being the friend of someone who is depressed. You just don’t know whether you might say the wrong thing. And the energy can become draining. Honestly? Think very carefully before you become the main confidante, because if you become that person, you should stick around. So if you can’t be that person, you need to make it clear from the start, maybe something to consider would be to say to your friend, “I’m your friend but I don’t have the capacity for this, you can talk to me but you need professional help as well”.
The main subject of this article though is from the point of view of a person who has made it clear to the other person that they suffer from this early on in the friendship. This is from personal experience. Somebody befriended me while I made it loud and clear that I was going through trouble. I was honest from the start about it. And here is where you as a non sufferer, but as a friend, think to yourself “How do I handle this, can I be in this for the long haul, can I advise but not be the leaning tower of support, or can I be the main person that is the support through this?” This friend of mine told me so many things – from “you’re special”, to “I’ll always be there for you,” to “tell me how you’re feeling today,” …. He enabled me to use him as my main support. But the problem is that he hadn’t seen it through and thought hard enough whether he would be in it for the long haul. And towards the end of February, he decided he’d had enough and told me we could no longer be friends. And it shattered me for many months. Your word is your reputation. Don’t make promises in any kind of capacity as a friend, that you can’t keep. I truly accredit it to the fact that I am slightly older now, and have a family to survive for, that this person who built up my confidence and then shattered me again, that I am still here with us all today.
Depression is a heavy subject and should also not be over discussed and I want to move onto something lighter. If there is one lesson that I can share, it’s to learn to enjoy your own company. I think many of us going through the things we go through can possibly find life quite lonely, especially if we don’t have many people around who we think may understand what we are going through. Loneliness becomes a whole lot less daunting when we learn to enjoy being with just ourselves. In fact, if we learn to like ourselves, we never need feel alone again. Take yourself for a cup of tea, for a movie, or for a walk and get to know yourself a little better. We tend to want to get to know everyone else, before we really even know who we are. The same friend who deserted me, of whom I write above, has this lesson to learn. He can not be by himself, go for a run or a walk by himself, which is what made his desertion of me all the more bitter as I was left vulnerable and alone. But there is a blessing in this in that it threw me on my own devices, it was sink or swim and I had to discover, very fast, that I’m actually a nice enough person to be around. This is particularly helpful if we have low self-esteem issues. Low self-esteem is not conquered by the approval of anyone else. It’s conquered by acknowledging your own good points and learning to like them. Your parents may have spent your formative years knocking you, and when you came out to them, they may have rejected you. But the only person’s actions over which you have control is yourself. The world may have rejected you, but that is no excuse to reject yourself. Accept yourself, and you’ll find it doesn’t matter so much that the rest of the world has rejected you.
This is me signing out and I promise that next week’s topic will be less sad! I hope everyone has a wonderful week.
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