Dealing With Someone With Depression

Tips For Coping With Depression In A Relationship

These 10 Tips Can Help Both You and Your Partner

If you are in a relationship with someone who has depression, you are likely struggling with a mix of emotions and lots of questions.

What’s it really like to feel depressed? What can you do to help them through hard times? How will their symptoms and treatment affect your relationship? While every person’s experience with depression is unique, here are a few things you can do to help your loved one and yourself.

Do Something You Have Control Over

Regaining some control in the moment could help overwhelming feelings feel a little easier to cope with.

You dont have to take any major action, but accomplishing a short task, such as making your bed, taking a shower, or unloading the dishwasher, can help boost a sense of accomplishment. It could also offer a temporary distraction.

How Do I Support Someone Ive Been Dating For A While Who Just Got Diagnosed

Maybe youve been with your partner for several years, and theyve just gotten a diagnosis of depression. This can be tricky to navigate, but obviously, if youve been with your partner for a while, you truly want the best for them, and you may have even noticed the depression before they did. Stay calm and understand that, with professional treatment, your partners depression can get better.

Here are 11 tips for supporting a long-term partner with a new depression diagnosis:

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Learn More About Depression

Youve probably encountered quite a few myths about depression. Learning to distinguish myth from reality can make a big difference in how you show up for your partner.

Some people describe depression as heavy fog or a blanket of nothingness. Others say it feels like drowning. Many people feel so overtaken by dullness, apathy, and hopelessness that they struggle to recall more positive states.

Good vibes and happy thoughts wont chase these feelings away, just like imagining yourself free of congestion wont get rid of a cold.

You can offer better support when you have a more accurate understanding of how depression affects your partner. Doing some research is a great way to expand your knowledge without putting the burden of education on your partner.

Since depression affects people in different ways, ask about their experience once you have a handle on the basic facts.

Try, Could you tell me more about how youre feeling today? Listen actively to what they have to say, offering empathy and validation instead of advice.

Dont be afraid to ask if they think about suicide. Some people feel afraid to share suicidal thoughts with loved ones. By asking, youre letting them know they can be honest. If they dont think about suicide, they wont suddenly start just because you mentioned the topic.

Knowing How Depression Works Can Help You Better Support Loved Ones Who Are Struggling

If youve never experienced clinical depression, it is hard to understand what it is like. Well-intentioned people will say things like, just think positive, or just snap out of it. Though they may not say it out loud, some people think a person with depression is just being lazy, or just trying to get attention. However, major depressive disorder is a serious psychological condition.

Before I became a clinical psychologist, I experienced a depressive episode after a divorce. The depression completely hijacked my thinking and feelings, and I even seriously contemplated suicide. A family member encouraged me to seek psychotherapy, and it really helped. This is what inspired me to become a psychologist, and I eventually became a board-certified clinical psychology professor. Through my research, writing, and international speaking, one of my personal life missions is to validate peoples struggles and walk with them on the path to recovery from depression.

If you know someone who seems depressed, it can be very difficult to understand, and it can be hard to know what to do. With more knowledge about how depression works, youll be in a better position to offer the most helpful support.

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Learn About Depression On Your Own

Imagine having to educate each person in your life about a mental or physical health condition youre experiencing explaining it over and over again. Sounds exhausting, right?

You can talk with your friend about their specific symptoms or how theyre feeling, but avoid asking them to tell you about depression in general terms.

Read up on the symptoms, causes, diagnostic criteria, and treatments on your own.

While people experience depression differently, being familiar with the general symptoms and terminology can help you have more in-depth conversations with your friend.

These articles are a good starting point:

• What Its Really Like Going Through a Deep, Dark Depression

Remember To Take Care Of Yourself

Witnessing a loved one’s struggle with depression and knowing you can’t fix it is challenging. Understand that emotions you experience, such as frustration, helplessness, fear, guilt or anger, are all natural responses. It’s important to take care of yourself, too. Validate your feelings and prioritize your own mental health by devoting time to hobbies, meaningful experiences, physical activity and other valued, meaningful relationships.

Jessie Wolf is a clinical social worker in Family Medicine in New Prague, Minnesota.

For the safety of our patients, staff and visitors, Mayo Clinic has strict masking policies in place. Anyone shown without a mask was either recorded prior to COVID-19 or recorded in a non-patient care area where social distancing and other safety protocols were followed.

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Here’s What You Can Do To Help:

• Talk to the person about what you’ve noticed and why you’re concerned.
• Explain that depression is a complex condition, not a personal flaw or weakness
• Remind them there are people who want to help them.
• Suggest seeking help from a health care or a mental health professional
• Consulting with a primary care professional can be the best place to start since a trusting relationship already has been established.
• Express your willingness to help by setting up appointments, accompanying your loved one and attending family therapy sessions.
• Offer to help prepare a list of questions and notable changes to discuss at an initial consultation.

How Can I Help

• Make sure that your loved one is evaluated and treated by a trained mental health professional. This is essential to properly diagnose depression and find the right kind of treatment.
• Educate yourself, your family, and friends about mental health problems and depression in particular. This will help you understand what your loved one is experiencing.
• Someone with depression needs consistent support. This can be draining, especially if it lasts for long periods of time. It is, however, one of the most important parts of successful treatment. People with depression can feel alone and isolated — giving consistent support and understanding are critical.
• Help the person with depression stick to their treatment plan. This means making sure that medicines are available if prescribed, being available to participate in therapy sessions with the person if needed, helping make recommended lifestyle changes, and encouraging the person to follow up with the proper health care provider, especially if the treatment needs to be adjusted.

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Communicate Listen & Understand

It is important for you to open the lines of communication with your partner so that depression can be openly discussed between the two of you. They need to feel comfortable sharing how they are feeling and what they need and you need to feel comfortable expressing concern in a gentle manner if you notice that their depression is returning/worsening. Often, people close to someone with depression notice it coming before the individual does. Early intervention is key to not letting the depression spiral. Kimberly Panganiban, LMFT

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Taking Care Of Yourself

There’s a natural impulse to want to fix the problems of people we care about, but you can’t control someone else’s depression. You can, however, control how well you take care of yourself. It’s just as important for you to stay healthy as it is for the depressed person to get treatment, so make your own well-being a priority.

Remember the advice of airline flight attendants: put on your own oxygen mask before you assist anyone else. In other words, make sure your own health and happiness are solid before you try to help someone who is depressed. You won’t do your friend or family member any good if you collapse under the pressure of trying to help. When your own needs are taken care of, you’ll have the energy you need to lend a helping hand.

Speak up for yourself. You may be hesitant to speak out when the depressed person in your life upsets you or lets you down. However, honest communication will actually help the relationship in the long run. If you’re suffering in silence and letting resentment build, your loved one will pick up on these negative emotions and feel even worse. Gently talk about how you’re feeling before pent-up emotions make it too hard to communicate with sensitivity.

How Depression Affects Relationships

Depression can negatively affect relationships because it can result in conflict, disconnect, and poor communication. One partner might feel isolated and alone. If the depressed partner is experiencing a low mood, the other partner might feel worried and anxious about their overall wellbeing. Depression also affects everything from work, to socializing, to sexual desire, so the ripples of depression within relationships reach beyond low mood. Depression can affect financial stability and employment.

Given the complex nature of depression and the many ways it affects both partners, its important to identify communities of support to help both partners work through it together.

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Do Something You Enjoy

Depression can push you to give in to your fatigue. It may feel more powerful than preferred emotions.

Try to push back and do something you love something thats pleasurable or meaningful. It could be playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or biking.

The byproduct of engaging in meaningful activities can be a lift in your mood or energy, which can further motivate you to continue to engage in helpful activities that help with navigating symptoms.

Research suggests that walks in nature may improve depressive symptoms in people with clinical depression.

Time in natural spaces may improve mood and cognition, and lower the risk of mental health disorders. However, theres only limited research on the direct effect of nature on those with clinical depression.

Consider taking a walk at lunch among the trees or spending some time in your local park. Or plan a weekend hike. These activities can help you reconnect with nature and soak in some rays at the same time.

Why Is Dealing With Depression So Difficult

Depression drains your energy, hope, and drive, making it difficult to take the steps that will help you to feel better. Sometimes, just thinking about the things you should do to feel better, like exercising or spending time with friends, can seem exhausting or impossible to put into action.

Its the Catch-22 of depression recovery: The things that help the most are the things that are the most difficult to do. There is a big difference, however, between something thats difficult and something thats impossible. While recovering from depression isnt quick or easy, you do have more control than you realizeeven if your depression is severe and stubbornly persistent. The key is to start small and build from there. You may not have much energy, but by drawing on all your reserves, you should have enough to take a walk around the block or pick up the phone to call a loved one, for example.

Taking the first step is always the hardest. But going for a walk or getting up and dancing to your favorite music, for example, is something you can do right now. And it can substantially boost your mood and energy for several hourslong enough to put a second recovery step into action, such as preparing a mood-boosting meal or arranging to meet an old friend. By taking the following small but positive steps day by day, youll soon lift the heavy fog of depression and find yourself feeling happier, healthier, and more hopeful again.

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Allow A Flexible Schedule

For many companies, a normal work schedule implies being in the office from nine to five. However, an employee suffering from depression may come to you and ask to come into the office later in the day. Sleep problems are common in depression and can involve oversleeping as well as difficulties falling or staying asleep. Helping an employee with a work schedule is therefore a reasonable accommodation and is supported by research.

Research from the 1980s through today suggests that flexible work hours actually increase productivity, commitment to the organization, and retention.

However, if you allow flexible hours, research suggests two recommendations. First, if needed, set a window of core hours or core days in which all team members must be at the office. People dealing with depression benefit from structure but often find it difficult to create structure for themselves. You can help by facilitating this in a sensitive and responsive manner. Second, dont let employees with depression stop interacting with you or other team members. Be on the lookout for avoidance on the part of your employee. Withdrawal only exacerbates the sense of isolation that depressed employees already feel.

Icipate In Your Partners Healing

Depression is treatable. Therapy, medications, and lifestyle changes can help people get better. Professional therapists are trained to support people in managing their depression symptoms. If youre dating someone with depression, encourage them to get help. And remember, if youre juggling depression and love, the best thing you can do is be your partners cheerleader, support them within their boundaries, and recognize the hard work theyre putting into healing.

At Rosglas Recovery, our expert psychologists take a comprehensive and holistic approach totreating depression. Besides evaluating the biological factors that could be causing depression, we also take into account the social and lifestyle factors that are unique to each individual. If youre dating a person who is struggling with depression, dont wait until your relationship has been damaged permanently. Talk to us today and take the first step toward healing.

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Alcohol Tobacco And Other Drugs

The misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription medications affect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. SAMHSAs 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that approximately 19.3 million people aged 18 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year.

Be Understanding & Supportive

Remember that your partner is going through a tough time, and they need your support more than ever. Dont get frustrated if they dont feel like doing anything or if their mood changes rapidly. Just be there for them and let them know that you love them no matter what. Valentina Dragomir, Psychotherapist and founder of PsihoSensus

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Know The Different Forms Depression Can Take

Depression often involves sadness or a low mood, but it also has other, less well-known symptoms.

For example, many people dont realize depression can involve:

• confusion, difficulties with memory, or difficulty focusing
• excessive fatigue or sleep concerns
• physical symptoms such as stomach distress, frequent headaches, or back and other muscle pain

Your friend may often seem to be in a bad mood, or feel exhausted a lot of the time. Try to keep in mind that what theyre feeling is still part of depression, even if it doesnt fit into the stereotypical versions of depression.

Even if you dont know how to help them feel better, simply saying Im sorry youre feeling this way. Im here to help if theres anything I can do may help.

Dealing With The Winter Blues

For some people, the reduced daylight hours of winter lead to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder . SAD can make you feel like a completely different person to who you are in the summer: hopeless, sad, tense, or stressed, with no interest in friends or activities you normally love. No matter how hopeless you feel, though, there are plenty of things you can do to keep your mood stable throughout the year.

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Tackle The Depression As A Team

While we have certainly come a long way in reducing the stigma around mental illness, the reality is that there often still is stigma attached to any kind of psychological diagnosis. Because of this, its imperative that supportive partners adopt an attitude of compassion for and collaboration with their partners with depression. Being a team might look like aligning with the depressed partners therapeutic goals, taking care of practical barriers , and learning what words/actions are helpful and encouraging. Heather Yassick, MS, LMHC & Grouport Therapist