Friends and family members of depressed people play an important role on the way to a normal life. Support in everyday life is enormously helpful during treatment.
Family members can play an important role for a depressed partner, relative, or friend in dealing with depression as well as in the process of recovery. However, you should be aware that the treatment and healing process takes time. A recovery cannot take place overnight. Therefore, it is important to have patience.
A depressed person needs attention, but must not be pressured. It is therefore important not to withdraw from the person concerned, but to speak openly with one another. Maintaining a good and trusting relationship is particularly important in such a phase of crisis.
At a glance:
Help from family members with depression
Here are some tips that family and friends can offer to support someone with depression:
- Orientation in everyday life: Depressive people find it difficult to pull themselves together. Help your partner or relatives to structure the daily routine and to bring a certain order and structure into everyday life.
- Support your partner or friend in everyday life. For example, help him with activities and obligations that he is currently unable to take on on his own due to the illness, or accompany him to visit the doctor or therapist. But avoid patronizing or restricting him, and don’t make decisions behind his back.
- Motivate: Try to motivate the person concerned to do smaller things, such as going for walks.
- Encourage him in every positive thing he does or says.
- Refrain from accusations or advice : Sentences like “Don’t be so rude!”, “You just have to try! or “It’s not that bad” don’t help depressed people.
- Encourage therapy: If depression is left untreated, it can become chronic. Shame about seeing a doctor or therapist is understandable but unnecessary. Therefore, encourage your partner or friend to seek professional help. Talk to him about the benefits of treatment.
- Try to convey understanding, courage and hope . However, exaggerated optimism seems implausible.
- Become active yourself: Friends in particular should keep in touch and suggest joint activities. Depression often means that the person concerned cannot find the energy to call or propose an activity together. It does not express disinterest in you or a desire to be left alone.
Relatives should not neglect their own needs
If your partner, friend or family member is depressed, your everyday life will also change. It is important not to neglect your own needs.
Depression is a serious and sometimes grueling illness that leaves traces of exhaustion and tension not only in those affected. Your own energy balance also suffers from the stress that depression brings with it.
A guilty conscience is out of place
In addition to the concern for the person concerned, the desire to find time for oneself and to be able to breathe a little. Such thoughts and needs may be frightening and trigger fears of neglecting, abandoning, or being selfish. However, taking responsibility for yourself does not mean shirking responsibility in any way or leaving your partner or friend out in the cold. It’s not about having to choose between your own well-being and the well-being of the depressed person. Neither the depressed person nor you will benefit if you do not allow yourself to seek relief and encouragement.
Tips for relatives
It is important that loved ones do not neglect themselves. The following tips will help you to find a constructive way of dealing with the stresses associated with the depression of a person close to you:
- Do not overstrain: You can help the person concerned in many ways – up to certain limits. Be careful not to become a substitute therapist. That’s not your job.
- Maintaining One’s Health : It is important to strike a balance between caring for and caring for the depressed person and taking responsibility for oneself and one’s health.
- Find people you trust: Don’t deal with everything on your own, don’t swallow up your worries and needs. Exchanging ideas and using your own social network can be an important support.
- Recharge your batteries: You too are not endlessly resilient. Pausing is a legitimate need that you can allow yourself.
- Don’t let your own interests and activities slip: meet up with friends, read a book, pursue your hobbies and do something. From this you can gain strength and courage, which can also help the depressed.
The information should enable you to find a balance between responsibility towards the patient and mindfulness for yourself with courage and self-confidence. This is the best and most helpful way for everyone involved to gain strength and courage for dealing with depression together collect.