5 Lessons I Learned After 10 Years of Working With People With Depression

About 10 years ago, my friend and I had to deal with unfortunate situations and learn to identify people who are suffering.

The pain we experienced in each case was extremely strong, and the fact that the problems appeared one after the other, broke our hearts into thousands of pieces. That's when I found out from my own experience what depression means. At that moment, we isolated ourselves from the world around us, even from each other.

Fortunately, I was not left without the support of those around me and after a while I found the strength to accept and overcome depression.

Then I realized that there is no universal cure for this condition, but there are some basic principles that can be helpful for people with depression.

Here are 5 of them:

1. Depression is not a state of mind that can be chosen consciously or logically

Suffering from depression is analogous to getting lost in a dense forest at night. When you get lost in such a forest, you don't realize what is happening from the beginning. Initially, you try to convince yourself that you have control over the situation and you have not lost.

But in the end, you admit to yourself that you have strayed from your path and you do not know how to get out of this forest. You don't know if you'll see the sun again.

Depression is one of the most exhausting emotional states a person can experience. You feel disoriented, you perceive everything as useless and meaningless.

Sometimes you can't feel anything. You're like dead inside.

2. Depression is not simply a state of deep sadness, as is most often identified

An injured heart can be the cause of depression, but an injured heart is not the depression itself. Depression is not rational or emotional - it cannot be identified as a direct reaction to an event.

Depression causes a state of inner emptiness, apathy, and immeasurable helplessness. It absorbs from man the last drops of life, hope, and rationality.

You don't feel yourself anymore. You barely feel human anymore. You don't want to fight anymore, you become paranoid. You no longer have the desire to live, and any friendly encouragement becomes useless. You're scared. They all tell you that you will recover soon, but you are sure that this will not happen.

3. When you suffer from depression, even knowing that someone loves you becomes a burden

"I do not want to see anyone. I pull the blinds and feel the wilderness slowly cover me like a wave. Whatever happens, I know it's my fault. I did something wrong, something big, that feels like I'm being dragged into the swamp until I feel like I'm completely immersed in it. I'm not capable of anything. I'm too stupid. Anyway, at least I didn't go down without explaining myself first. " This is an excerpt from the novel "Cat's Eyes" by Margaret Atwood and describes very well the condition of a depressed person.

Depression makes you feel desperate and lonely. But most often because of it, people become estranged from the world and their loved ones.

Depressed people feel like a burden to their loved ones.

4. Depression and a broken heart can deplete all your energy resources

Fatigue and energy depletion is widespread effect of depression. You may feel so bad that even a simple act like getting out of bed can seem like a challenge to you. It becomes even more complicated when people with depression may feel accepted at one point and then completely exhausted at another. Therefore, these people leave parties much earlier than others, cancel meetings, and never promise anything.

This behavior is not conditioned by those around you, so the family and others close to you should not feel responsible for it. This behavior is just an attempt to deal with negative thoughts.

5. When you suffer from depression, clichés will not help you

• "Time heals"
• "Nothing serious happened"
• "You just need to go outdoors more often"
• "Don't live in the past"
• "Do not be sad"

These "positive" expressions will never encourage a person with depression. On the contrary, they will seem empty, meaningless, and useless. In most cases, these sentences do not coincide with reality and only reinforce the belief of the suffering person that he cannot be helped.

This action is the same as the one in which you want to put a patch on a deep wound, which does not stop bleeding. This genre will be perceived as a joke.