Enrique is 39 years old and goes to the psychologist consultation Since he was diagnosed a few months ago with a major depressive disorder. In yesterday's session, he complained of feeling little support from those around him.
And indeed, the following are the worst things you can say to a person with depression.
Do we understand what depression is?
According to the WHO, Depression is the most common psychological disorder – together with the anxiety – since it affects more than 300 million people, being the main cause of disability and contributing significantly to morbidity.
It mainly affects men and women between 25 and 44 years of age, although it is currently also significantly affecting adolescents.
Depression has multiple causes and depends on biological, psychological and social factors.
We tend to tell our depressed friends and family what to do, what to think, and even how to feel because we are projecting our own discomfort onto them when we see them sad or depressed. Probably with the best of intentions, we give them our advice, which is just “advice” but not necessarily appropriate, among other things, because People with depression don’t need “advice” either.
Depression is not a choice. Depression comes into your life and destroys your thoughts, emotions, dreams and illusions, and lowers your self-esteem.
What you should never ever say to a person with depression
- ¡Cheer upDepression presents affective symptoms (sadness, guilt), motivational symptoms (loss of motivation, dependency), cognitive symptoms (indecision, catastrophic vision), physiological symptoms (appetite and sleep disorders) and behavioural symptoms (passivity, avoidance). Therefore, it is not that they do not want to cheer up, but that they simply cannot. If you tell your depressed friend or relative to cheer up, all you will achieve is that they will become even more frustrated seeing that they cannot do it. Stay by their side, tell them that these emotions are temporary and that they just have to wait for the treatment from the psychiatrist and the psychologist to work.
- Do some exercise and it will go away. It is true that exercise makes us secrete endorphins, which are the “happiness hormones” and act as a natural antidepressant. However, one of the main symptoms of patients with depression is clinophilia, that is, the desire to stay in bed because they simply cannot get out of it.
- Get ready, you have to go out, you'll distract yourself and you'll be fine. Let's start with the fact that it's a good idea. But there are several problems. First, people with depression usually have low self-esteem, so getting dressed up, looking pretty or anything else is already a new source of frustration. On the other hand, the more we insist on something that she can't do – getting off the couch or the bed or vice versa – the only thing we'll achieve is that the patient has a more fixed idea about «I can't.»
- Let's practice your favorite activity. That way it will pass. It's probably always been a great idea, except that if the patient has depression, there's another symptom called anhedonia What is the inability to enjoy pleasant activities that you used to like. Dragging a depressed person into doing what was their favorite activity, although it may seem paradoxical, is not a good idea. The person will end up going to satisfy you but will feel overwhelmed. The best thing to do is to remind them that, if at any time they feel like doing that activity, you will always be there.
- I can't help you if you don't tell me everything that's happening to you. We know that families and friends of people with depression also suffer, that they often feel lost and without answers to their many questions, that they don't know what to say or how to treat their relative or friend, but the patient, who wants to explain what is happening to him with all his might, finds it difficult because he thinks that no one will understand him, that these are feelings that only occur to him or, in the worst case, that he will be treated as «crazy» out of fear of a possible mental illness. However, the patient is aware that there is something wrong. The best thing is not to force him, to give him space and time to ask you for help and to ask a psychologist for professional help.
- With so many people in the world who don't stop fighting, I don't know what you're complaining about. Depression is an illness as real as a physical illness, except that it is a psychological disorder that has a significant impact on various areas of the person who suffers from it. It is important to recognize that there is no complete health if there is no physical and mental health. No one would choose to fracture their tibia, right? Well, the same is true for depression.
Depression is not chosendepression comes into your life and destroys thoughts, emotions, dreams and illusions, it lowers self-esteem. If we come with a phrase like this or similar, the only thing we achieve is that the patient feels pressured – more than anything by himself – and ends up frustrated, self-esteem decreases further, he becomes more demotivated and worsens. We must remember that our relative or friend has not chosen to be so bad or much less have this disease and, although it may seem obvious, it is still very important.
What we can do is offer solutions, make you aware that, at this time, you do not have sufficient personal resources to overcome the illness on your own and, therefore, in the same way as you would if you had fractured your tibia, you should go to a mental health professional, who will not judge you, will understand you and help you find a way out.
- Oh! I understand you very well; much worse things have happened to me.This is one of the wrong extremes of the same situation, and we will look at the next one below. If you really want to help your family member, you should give them a space to express themselves, since knowing that you have had a worse time is of no use to them. This does not lessen their pain or increase their self-esteem, and the only thing it causes them is to feel guilty for being in a bad situation. It is better to tell them that you are there to help them, to listen to them, and to find a possible solution to what is making them suffer.
- I woke up feeling “depressed” but now I feel better. This is one of the most common phrases heard among teenagers. First of all, there is no such thing as “depression” that lasts only a few minutes or hours, but we can replace it with the well-known “I’ve had a blues” – light years away from depression. It is only a temporary decline that happens to anyone from time to time. However, I said before that it is at the other extreme, because the term has been so trivialized that when someone really is depressed, we downplay it and thus increase their feeling of emptiness, helplessness and loneliness.
- What you need to do is do more if you want to heal. But if it were that simple, wouldn't you have done it already? You have to be careful when saying this phrase to a family member or friend who is depressed, because it generates an intense feeling of helplessness and incomprehension.
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The pain of family and friends of a person with depression is completely understandable, but we must be very careful with statements that imply value judgments about the patient for several reasons: Healing from depression is not just about having willpoweralthough everything would be much simpler. But above all, because the patient has a very bad image of himself and ends up believing anything that is told to him. We fall back into frustration, demotivation, worsening of depression. It is better to recommend that he be patient, that he continue the treatment despite the discomfort or annoyance that it may cause him in its first stages.
- You are exaggerating too much, you are dramatizing the situation. No, this is also a wrong statement. We must bear in mind that people with depression often have strong feelings of guilt – real or perceived – for past actions, but at the same time they feel that the future is full of uncertainty and doubt, and, being very negative, they believe that they will never achieve their life goals. All of this is part of the illness, which, again, we must not forget is an absolutely real illness. Therefore, this way of interpreting life experiences and the situations that occur in it is not chosen. The fact of having difficulties in coping with the illness does not imply that there is a lack of awareness of it, much less a will to get out of it.
Try empathize with your family member or friend who has depressionTell them that you understand them – but don't compare your experiences with theirs – that you really want to understand how they feel about the situation you're living – and remember that it's not about how you, who aren't sick, experience it and feel it, but about how your family member or friend with depression feels it. Explain to them that you will be there for them for whatever they need. Only in this way will you give them the strength to continue.
- You are unbearable, no one can stand you. One of the worst things you can say to someone with depression, especially because it shifts the focus. For someone who says something like this to a family member or friend, the problem is not so much the illness as the patient's own character, which is «unbearable.» He is labeled negatively and, in the process, it is suggested that his way of being is not appropriate. The patient will feel intense anxiety and we will enter into a negative feedback loop with the depression that will only end up causing it to worsen.
I understand that it is difficult for family and friends, especially if it is depression in adolescents, which is expressed with more irritability than sadness and that, at some point, phrases like these can be said without being aware of the damage that we cause. In addition to recommending that your family member or friend go to a professional, since you do not have the appropriate tools to achieve their recovery, you can also go to a professional to give you guidelines on how to treat this person.
- What you need is a positive attitude. We are so good at selling advice that I don't want myself! Although there is a small part of truth in this phrase; a positive attitude helps a lot in the therapeutic process and, in addition, it is very difficult for us to suppress this phrase when we see a family member or friend with depression. However, there is something called the cognitive triadaccording to which Patients with depression have a negative view of themselves, the world and the future. Either we go through a therapeutic process to work well on this triad or we forget about the positive attitude…
- It doesn't seem like you're that bad. Exactly! It doesn't seem so. In the age of social media, where happiness is sold by the like or the follower, in shop windows of an imagined but not real happiness…