"What to Tell Your Depressed Friend"

This list comes from Dr. Hendrie Weisinger on what to do or not do for a friend who needs someone to talk to about their depressed state.  He begins the article by talking about a situation in which he needed to give up doing something that he wanted to do in order to help his friend out.  As he puts it: "Help your friends when they are depressed, my friend!"

Here is his list of what not to do:

1. Don't try to be strong for your friend by telling him to "pull himself up by the bootstraps and be tough." Watch what you say despite your good intentions, because you will tend to say the wrong thing many times and be discouraging.
2. Don't get so involved and frustrated by your friend's seeming lack of optimism and confidence that you wind up arguing with your friend -- especially about what he should and should not do.
3. Do not join your depressed friend in his depression -- remember that depression is contagious and that your friend's feelings are not your feelings.

Here is his list of what to do:

1. Maintain warm, caring relationship free from hostility and tension.
2. Learn to cope with the hardships that relating frequently with a depressed person can impose such as the tendency to be lured into destructive criticism and arguments about your friend's passivity.
3. Learn what depression is -- a clinical disorder that is not something someone turns "on" or "off" and may be triggered by an event but becomes a brain chemistry disorder separate from that event.

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