When I am depressed I often need company from people who understand me and are not demanding anything of me. Misunderstood = alone.
Sometimes I just need to be taken care of for a bit.
Sometimes I need someone to ask, "Are you okay?". I need them to tell me that they care about me, without putting pressure on me to suddenly be all cheerful. And I need them to know that just then, I can't actually receive any help from them, but that what they do to help me will be appreciated later. I need them to not expect instant results and comfort me anyway.
I find there are lots of small lifestyle factors that usually contribute to my depression, and fixing any one of them will help but only a little bit. I need support while I try to get several things coordinated and working for me again. I need someone to say "Hey, ewt, is that what you really want to do?" without scaring me. This can be rather delicate.
I don't know if any of this applies to anyone else, I can only speak for myself. Every person is different and every depression is different.
It's difficult to put into writing what will help when I don't always know what will help me in a given situation, or I don't know whether what worked last time will work this time. There aren't always hard-and-fast rules about what helps and what doesn't, I don't want to tell someone that something will help if I'm not sure it will, and by the time I'm severely depressed I may be so out of touch that I can't put into words what I need anyway. If it were consistent then I could avoid depression entirely.
I wish I had a simple answer for you, but I don't.
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Date: 2004-09-09 11:14 am (UTC)Sometimes I just need to be taken care of for a bit.
Sometimes I need someone to ask, "Are you okay?". I need them to tell me that they care about me, without putting pressure on me to suddenly be all cheerful. And I need them to know that just then, I can't actually receive any help from them, but that what they do to help me will be appreciated later. I need them to not expect instant results and comfort me anyway.
I find there are lots of small lifestyle factors that usually contribute to my depression, and fixing any one of them will help but only a little bit. I need support while I try to get several things coordinated and working for me again. I need someone to say "Hey, ewt, is that what you really want to do?" without scaring me. This can be rather delicate.
I don't know if any of this applies to anyone else, I can only speak for myself. Every person is different and every depression is different.
It's difficult to put into writing what will help when I don't always know what will help me in a given situation, or I don't know whether what worked last time will work this time. There aren't always hard-and-fast rules about what helps and what doesn't, I don't want to tell someone that something will help if I'm not sure it will, and by the time I'm severely depressed I may be so out of touch that I can't put into words what I need anyway. If it were consistent then I could avoid depression entirely.
I wish I had a simple answer for you, but I don't.