I could have written the title of this post a bit
differently, “for your depressed family and friends,” but I want to be clear
that when I’m writing about depression right now, I’m not talking about people
who are “depressed”, as in sad, bummed out, or having a bad week. I’m talking about those of us whose brains
work differently, who have a very real medical condition that makes us feel
devastated, like our insides have been torn out and stomped all over, day after
day for months or even years, no matter what our outward circumstances may be. Many of us manage our condition with a
combination of medication and talk therapy, far too many of us suffer
undiagnosed, as I did for years, and sadly, some of us just feel we can’t keep
going and end our lives. You, our
friends and family, can help us out, but sometimes when you try to help, it can
make things worse. So here are a few
things to do to help us out:
1. Take our illness seriously.
You wouldn’t tell someone with a broken leg or diabetes or
cancer to just suck it up, would you? We
may look fine on the outside, but depression is a real disease and you need to
recognize that and treat us accordingly.
2. Don’t tell us it could be worse or about how
bad other people have it.
Our brains are messed up.
The pain we feel has little to no relation to our outward
circumstances. Sure I’m not starving to
death or dying from an incurable disease, but I’m enduring unspeakable
suffering inside anyway.
3. Stop giving us advice on how to feel better
if you haven’t experienced real depression yourself.
This is one of the absolute most frustrating things to me as
a depressed person. So many well-intentioned, non-depressed people suggest that we try things that help
them feel better when they feel down.
It’s just not the same. Even if
your suggestion might help us a little, it’s still a drop in the bucket. Encourage us to seek treatment, but beyond
that, you’re really not helping.
4. Let your Christianity be about more than
positive emotion.
Having come out of conservative Evangelicalism, I spent a
long time in a world where happiness and joy were signs of a healthy spiritual
life. A guy who went to the same campus
ministry as I did and now directs a campus ministry himself recently posted on
social media, “If you are truly being faithful you
will be consistently joyful.” As someone
who has struggled with depression for years on end, I couldn’t disagree
more. Even the most faithful people can
experience what St John of the Cross referred to as the “dark night of the
soul”. In Psalm 88, the poet says that
despite his constant calling out to God, “Darkness is my only companion.” It might be hard to find a more faithful
person in the Bible than Job, but he suffered horribly nonetheless. Our pain doesn’t mean that we’re far from God
or that God is far from us, and it’s certainly not due to a lack of spiritual
effort. I brought another friend who
also struggled with depression*
to the campus ministry I attended in college, and she couldn’t stand being
there. Her words have stuck with me for
over a decade: “It’s not a place where it's okay to not be okay.” (Eventually, I stopped going there myself,
although partly for other reasons.) Our
churches, ministries, Bible studies, and friendships need to be places where
it’s okay to not be okay. A Christianity
that equates faith with positive emotion grinds down people like us, tearing us
up inside even more than we already were and exacerbating the crises of faith
that depression can already bring with it.
5. Just be there.
No judgment, no advice (unless you yourself have struggled
with depression), no pep talks, no expectations – just show up and be present
with us. Sit there, and acknowledge our
pain, validate and try to empathize with our feelings. We need you to try to understand our pain, gently check up on us, and accept us for who we are and where
we’re at.
* I
hadn’t really come to terms with my own depression yet at this point.
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