How to deal with a depressed person

You've probably thought or said it before, "Can't you just say you're not depressed?". So no, you can't, but you can certainly help with depression in other ways to help the depressed person to still be happy or at least satisfied with life again

Facilitate basic health incentives

Someone who is depressed may sometimes let everything slide. A healthy diet, basic hygiene, and even a little exercise are no longer a priority. You don’t need to push the person who is depressed, but it helps if there are some basic health incentives in place.

Make sure there is healthy food in the house. Fruit, vegetables, whole grain products, fish. A healthy mind depends in part on healthy food. So get the junk food out of your house so that the depressed person does have to eat healthy food. If necessary, offer him/her a green smoothie that is easy to work away yet full of healthy vitamins and minerals.

Make sure the bathroom is clean and tidy making it inviting to take a shower. Just put the towels in a dryer (your mother's if necessary) so that they are nice and soft, making this a moment that the depressed person finds hard to ignore.

Every now and then, suggest going for a walk together. The person with depression doesn’t have to say yes, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

You can also set a good example yourself by consciously eating healthy, exercising regularly and staying positive.

Listening is more important than giving advice

Helping someone with depression is different from curing someone of depression (though it does help with the healing process). There’s a good chance you’ll become frustrated with the person you’re trying to help, but remember that overcoming depression takes time.

Therefore, it is best to offer a listening ear to the depressed person. After all, the advice may still be too difficult to carry out at first, even if it's just a 10-minute walk. Some everyday things can be a towering task for someone with depression.

Listening to the depressed person makes them feel more heard. Do not be judgmental in the conversation, of course you may think something he/she says is stupid, but keep this to yourself. By remaining judgment-free, the depressed person feels safe with you and dares to tell you more which can be very relieving.

Of course, you can always ask if the depressed person has thought about asking for help.

What you can and cannot say

Of course, you can say things while listening[1]. The following are things it's best not to say:

• It's all between the ears.
• Look on the bright side.
• What's wrong with you?
• Shouldn't you be getting better by now?

You can say the following phrases:

• You are important to me. Your life is important to me.
• If you want to give up, tell yourself to try another day, or 1 hour. Whatever you can.
• I probably don't understand how you feel, but I care about you and want to help you.

Encourage the depressed person to seek help

Asking if he/she has thought about seeking help is the first step in encouraging someone to seek help.

In addition, you can also search for potential resources on your own, such as finding people who have also suffered (had) depression with whom to talk about the experience and to get practical tips from someone who knows what it's like to be depressed.

Or even finding therapists and other experts who can treat a depressed person. Often a person with depression can see a psychologist and/or hypnosis expert (sometimes a psychologist is also a hypnosis expert), and if all that is no use, you can often see a psychiatrist who can prescribe antidepressants. So if the depressed person does not want to take pills, there are certainly alternatives.

You can pick up leaflets from the experts and present them to the depressed person to "take a look at it."

Also offer to go with them to see a doctor. This can help him/her get over fears of taking that step.

Take care of yourself too

However, all of the above tips can only be implemented in 1 way, after you have also taken good care of yourself. After all, you cannot take care of another person until you do the same for yourself.

Therefore, take a break from caregiving duties from time to time and take time for yourself. Go do something fun with your friends, treat yourself to the beautician or an hour at the gym (or sauna).

Take time for yourself to recharge when you need it. Someone who is depressed can be very difficult to deal with. Men sometimes react very differently to depression than women do, which can actually turn them into total jerks instead of whiny wimps.

Research shows that people who take care of other people are more likely than average to develop depression themselves[2]. Therefore, take care of yourself as well.

Responsible or not

If you feel extremely responsible for the person who is depressed, a hypnotherapist can help you develop a sense of responsibility that’s better suited to the situation. The biggest pitfall is that you feel responsible for what the other person does and says, even though there’s often not much you can do about it.

One way to improve this sense of responsibility is through hypnotic suggestions that you can then also practice at home during self-hypnosis. The suggestions depend on your beliefs about what is and is not your responsibility and to what extent you can help someone with depression. So they may be different from these examples:

"You are not responsible for what the other person does."

"You don't make choices for the other person; in the end, the other person really makes them for themselves."

"Sometimes you can't fix someone, you can only assist them," he says.

Depending on the problems you are having with responsibility, you can get these kinds of suggestions from the hypnosis expert so that you can better assist the person with depression because you also guard your own boundaries well and take good care of yourself.

Setting boundaries

When someone just lies in bed and gives all responsibility to you, chances are that your limits of what is humanly possible to help someone are exceeded.

Not understanding that you need to sleep can be one such boundary, for example.

It’s therefore important to set clear boundaries regarding what you can do for the person with depression. This can be very stressful because you might feel guilty toward the person with depression when you have to say no to someone who is ill.

Then remember that you are selling that no because otherwise you will get sick yourself.

If you find it difficult to deal with these feelings, a hypnosis expert can help you with this by performing a guided visualization, for example. With this you practice, as it were, the behavior you want to have, namely telling yourself that you have a limit and sticking to it.

So when you find it difficult to imagine, hypnosis helps with this. In fact, the ability to imagine is important because often you can only show certain behavior when you can see before you how it will happen. So a guided visualization helps with this.

A guided visualization can then take the form of:

"You engage with the person with depression. You've already used all the good tips from the blog, but now you want to set your boundaries. Namely, at night you need to sleep and you also want a few evenings a week to be "free" for a few hours to recharge. You sit down on the couch and take the depressed person's hand. You feel the body heat and the leathery texture of the skin (but alive) and you look at the person. You say, "I'm trying to help you the best I can, but I notice that this also takes a lot of energy out of me. That doesn't matter, that's part of it. This is why I do have to take care of certain things so that I can continue to take good care of you. At night between 10 pm and 7 am it's time for me to sleep, then I can't talk to you. In addition, I need a few evenings a week to recharge and work on my own health. On those evenings I try to bring in other help for you, but if you think you can be alone this is fine too." You remain calm as you tell this and you are relieved that you were at least able to say this. If the depressed person doesn't understand this anyway, you can call his doctor and get your own help."

This is just an example of a guided visualization. Depending on the problems you have or issues you want to discuss, a hypnosis expert can help you with a different guided visualization.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to a hypnosis workshop or sign up for one of our training programs.

[1] https://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/helping-someone-with-depression.htm

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010440X16305673