Depression Learning

quick question..

Question:

that exactly how she feels….she is going to the doctors and on meds but i’m not sure if she’s taking them Luc – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Dear Luc:   Let her talk, or whimper, just hold on to her.  It will take time Be as understanding as you possibly can.  Let her be hugged and feel comforted by you.  Is she going to a doctor?  Is she on Meds? She is feeling very alone even though she has you there. It is like being in a very dark cave.  No light and no understanding about how to get out of there.  A trapped sort of sensation. You don’t know which way is up or down. This is the way it feels to me,  yet so much more.  Really hard to explain.               Like being very very sad.  but the sad won’t go away. Helpless and worthless all at the same time and more. Hope this helps a little. My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

Response:

that exactly how she feels….she is going to the doctors and on meds but i’m not sure if she’s taking them

Try and get her to take them – but don’t push too hard, be gentle and persistent and back off when you have to. You need a lot of patience. Good luck to you both!!! -Jerry – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Luc Dear Luc:   Let her talk, or whimper, just hold on to her.  It will take time Be as understanding as you possibly can.  Let her be hugged and feel comforted by you.  Is she going to a doctor?  Is she on Meds? She is feeling very alone even though she has you there. It is like being in a very dark cave.  No light and no understanding about how to get out of there.  A trapped sort of sensation. You don’t know which way is up or down. This is the way it feels to me,  yet so much more.  Really hard to explain.               Like being very very sad.  but the sad won’t go away. Helpless and worthless all at the same time and more. Hope this helps a little. My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

Response:

Luc, How wonderful for her that you are so concerned about her. I agree with the advice to hold her and listen and be there. And to remind her, maybe, in a gentle way, that you two have had many good times together, and will again, and that though she can’t believe/feel that now, it’s because she’s depressed that she can’t (actually say that to her – it helps to have the outside perspective, especially expressed compassionatley), she will again, and that many people have felt just the way she has, but that they’ve had really positive experiences of reconnecting to the joy in themselves through getting stabilized on medications. Good luck to you – you’re a good friend to her. Deborah

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My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better???

She might find it helpful to chat on one of the depression newsgroups… Jay H UPDATED Web page at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/close/xhq10/mem.htm I’ve been Jay H, Canarybird, Empty Cage, Serin, Phoenix, even Crow. Let’s see if I can stick with this one for a while.

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Can you keep her up all night, that is, force her to skip a sleep period? Sleep deprivation is a technique that has been used to break the grip of depression, and the patients can then be maintained on antidepressants. It has been shown to work well, but for obvious reasons it is not to popular. But that is about the only thing you can do to her, yourself, that has a good chance of putting a dent in her depression. Keith

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You really can’t About the only thing you can do is try gently to get her to seek professional help. I bet right now she doesn’t think anything can help and has a difficult time understanding the concept of feeling better if she can understand it at all. If you care just be there and keep trying to get her try some help. (Meds helped me a LOT). Been on both sides of that window – you can not grasp what she feels like unless you wind up on the same side of it she is on. I sure hope you don’t, I would rather be clueless myself. Anyway, like I said, meds have helped me a lot, though I am still very far from where I was before. At least the despair is mostly gone for me. -Jerry – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Dear Luc:   Let her talk, or whimper, just hold on to her.  It will take time Be as understanding as you possibly can.  Let her be hugged and feel comforted by you.  Is she going to a doctor?  Is she on Meds? She is feeling very alone even though she has you there. It is like being in a very dark cave.  No light and no understanding about how to get out of there.  A trapped sort of sensation. You don’t know which way is up or down. This is the way it feels to me,  yet so much more.  Really hard to explain.               Like being very very sad.  but the sad won’t go away. Helpless and worthless all at the same time and more. Hope this helps a little. My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

Response:

Dear Luc:   Let her talk, or whimper, just hold on to her.  It will take time Be as understanding as you possibly can.  Let her be hugged and feel comforted by you.  Is she going to a doctor?  Is she on Meds? She is feeling very alone even though she has you there. It is like being in a very dark cave.  No light and no understanding about how to get out of there.  A trapped sort of sensation. You don’t know which way is up or down. This is the way it feels to me,  yet so much more.  Really hard to explain.                Like being very very sad.  but the sad won’t go away. Helpless and worthless all at the same time and more. Hope this helps a little. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

Response:

Well, call me a co-dependent if you must, but it sounds to me like you’re confusing depression with addiction. Personally, I’d have found it very helpful for someone who really had my best interests at heart, and whose perspective wasn’t clouded by a chemical blitz, to give me some rational feedback on certain patterns I wasn’t able to see myself. I’d also have found it tremendously helpful for someone to help me with the tasks of choosing a therapist, planning how to pay for therapy, and how to get there, and just following up with me on a regular basis about how I was doing. SAD can obliterate one’s ability to do any of these things for oneself. It’s not a matter of motivation. And in the summer, it’s very difficult to really believe or remember how one was feeling during that time, which I believe is also chemical (SAD totally trashes my memory). Your advice would appropriate if his girlfriend was an alcoholic, but it’s cruel and wrong advice for the friend of a depresisve. I respect that you may have knowledge pertaining to your own situation and experience that would be useful to others in the same situation, but please be sure it IS the same situation before you go projecting. — "When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." –Dom Helda Camera, Brazilian Catholic Bishop

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My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

  Luc, If she’s not eating, or she’s threatening to kill herself, or she has attempted suicide and it’s a medical emergency, then you can dial 9-1-1. Even if she’s kidding around but you feel she’s serious, call the Police and they’ll hook her up with the local mental health facility and she’ll get the help she needs. Other than that, is there anything YOU can do? No. Honestly, no. You have no control over another person’s illness. You can tell her you love her and that she needs to get help. If she is depressed (which means she has been depressed for more than two weeks) then she can only help herself. It’s too complicated to get into here, really, but depression is a serious medical illness and should never be taken lightly. If she threatens to kill herself, then call the police RIGHT AWAY and tell them your girlfriend is threatening to kill herself. But that’s it. If she cuts herself or takes pills, don’t do anything other than call 9-1-1. If she’s talking about being depressed and verbalizes that she thinks she needs help, then encourage her to get help. Don’t make an appointment for her. She needs to do this herself otherwise she won’t go. Trust me. Don’t try to "fix" her depression with flowers or dinner. Most depressed people are not sad like you might think. They are seriously mentally ill. Above all else, don’t blame yourself for her depression. It’s not your fault. Tell her she needs to help herself. Otherwise, she doesn’t really want help. Sorry if that sounds cold, but if you were to do anything other than to encourage her and support her by telling her she needs help, then you become an enabler and that only will make her WORSE! For example, if she’s so depressed that she can’t get out of bed to go to school or work, or hang with her friends, and when school or work or her friends call and you make up a story about how she’s "sick", you are NOT helping her. You’re only helping her to get worse. If that happens, hand her the phone. Don’t make excuses for her. Well, I could go on for hours. Sorry to all you co-dependents out there who will hate me. John

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My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better???

As the others have said, get her to see a shrink for meds.  A therapist would be helpfull, too to talk things out.  Other than that, well try to be patient and understanding with her, even if you don’t understand.  Her self esteem will be low and she will probably feel worthless.  She may feel she doesn’t deserve your love & caring.  Hang in there with her.  It’s going to be rough for you, too.  You’ll feel helpless & maybe angry cuz nothing you do seems to make her better. And something else to know, she has to get better at her own pace, so please be very patient.  But in the long run, it will be worth it, and she’ll be grateful.   She & you are more than welcome here. "I don’t have all the answers; I don’t even have all of the questions!" (me)

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My girlfriend has a drepression….is there anything i could do to help her or to make her feel better??? Luc

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