🧠 Depression: How I beat it

and how I help others with it

I have someone close to me who’s depressed, which isn’t nice because I’ve been there myself.

My brain was so tired that I could barely get out of bed, and I lost hope things would get better.

But I beat it and know they can too.

So I’m going to take what I learned from my experience to help them in the same way my friends and family helped me.

Note: I am not a psychologist. But I don’t need to be to share what worked for me.

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What helped

The only way out of depression is to get out of it yourself.

And in the process of doing that, you’ll rebuild your self-esteem and feel great.

But you’ll need the support of family and friends when you hit rock bottom.

Which is a tricky balance to find, as family will often step in to do things for the depressed person out of love and to stop the suffering.

Unfortunately, that just makes things worse in the long run, as it robs the person of the chance to earn self-respect by overcoming something tough.

But what friends and family can they do is give the person energy to do the work of overcoming it.

And by energy, I mean help them feel better by:

• Going for a morning walk together and get sun.

• Listening and ask questions

• Let them know you haven’t lost faith in them, even though they’ve lost faith in themselves.

It’s almost guaranteed the person with depression isn’t sleeping well.

And taking them for an early walk in the sun helps reset their sleep cycle, which makes it easier for them to sleep that night.

Also on the walk, they’ll be more likely to open up about their troubles if they feel they won’t be judged.

I went for lots of morning walks with my Dad and brothers, and after listening, they asked questions that helped me think through my situation and figure out what the next step was.

Thinking I wouldn’t be able to do on my own because my brain was fried.

And most importantly, my Dad believed I could turn things around even though I thought I couldn't.

And he did it by not stepping in to fix things for me.

He just stood by and let me fix them myself.

Thank you Dad.

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So yeah, people with depression need to beat it themselves and fixing things for them will only make it worse.

But there are simple things you can do to help.

Thanks for reading and have a great R U OK Day.