Reaching In: How to Help a Friend With Depression

Have you ever struggled? Really struggled? Sometimes it’s termed depression, but it doesn’t really matter if you give it a label or not, most of us have tough times and chances are that you heard the same kind of advice I did…

“You need to ask for help.”

“Why don’t you ask people?”

“[You] Just let me know if you need anything.”

Even when it’s silent, that three letter word is there – YOU. You need to do this. You need to do that. We have developed a myriad of ways to tell people they need to ask for help. It seems sensible – otherwise how do we know that someone needs help? What if we end up interfering? What if they really don’t want our help? In reality though this approach burdens those who are already sinking. Some people are good at asking for help and all power to them. Maybe their asking skills help them avoid rock bottom more than most, but I imagine there is a place at which all people are capable of reaching where asking becomes impossible. For others, we aren’t so good at asking even in our finest moments – it’s just not something we do. When big stuff happens I literally don’t know how to bring the subject up. I have no idea why I’m like this, but I am. Once the topic is raised and – crucially – someone listens, I can’t shut up. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s that I don’t want to burden, or bore, you. No-one wants you to call just so you can tell them how shitty life is. If they were that interested, they’d have picked up the phone already.

Sometimes not asking for help is part of the struggle. Closing up can be an essential self-protection mechanism; the only way to get through is to put our head down and plough on. We don’t have the energy to ask for help. Half the time we don’t even know what help we want or need. In the early days of my separation I shut myself off to all but a few. It wasn’t that I didn’t want people around, I wanted that more than anything, but to have the energy to get through the day I needed to shut off everything but basic human functionality.  It was a way to conserve my limited emotional energy from the potential disappointment of people not being interested. When you’re feeling truly depressed everything that can be taken as a dig, slight or lack of concern is taken as one. And more. Everything that might show someone does actually care just gets lost in the foggy swamp of life’s struggles. Avoiding human interaction minimises the pain that can come from even a well meaning comment, let alone a thoughtless one.

So there’s a new concept I’d like to float – the idea of reaching in.

It seems absurd that such a simple concept could be new. I was sure it couldn’t be. Admittedly, my research wasn’t very scientific, but from a quick google search it seems that even the big mental health charities focus on people reaching out. This misses so much of what happens when someone falls into the hole of depression.

I used to have a really close friend. Best friend really. I’d known her since forever; supported her through some of her toughest times (and they were bloody tough). I’d always taken the approach of reaching in. It was just automatic, something I didn’t really think about – perhaps because it’s what I would have wanted needed if the tables were turned. It was easy because she was good at reaching out, so I guess we met in the middle. Yet when my challenges came, she couldn’t see that I couldn’t reach out – partly because of who I am, and partly because of how deep the hole I was in had become. At the time of my separation she kept cancelling our meet ups last minute. Each time it was a mammoth effort to build myself up to going out – my anxiety was huge but I was determined not to let it turn me into a complete recluse. Being de-prioritised this way was adding to my feelings of worthlessness and depression. Eventually I told her I couldn’t handle the constant cancellations but that she was welcome to come round. This was as close as I could get to saying what I needed from her. She hardly ever contacted me again and we haven’t seen each other since.

Shutting off when the shit hits the fan isn’t only a self-protection mechanism. Personally, I want people to help because they want to, not because they feel obliged to. People may worry about interfering, or assume someone is fine because they don’t ask directly for support, but we aren’t all like that. This isn’t a diss on either type of personality – it’s about raising awareness of how many people find it near impossible to reach out. If we really care about someone, if we really love them, then it’s usually worth finding a way to reach in instead. With this friend in question I had offered her support when she had her major life challenges because I wanted to support her and I wanted to be there for her. Sure, she asked for specifics that I could do (research things for her, help physically with certain things, spend a day a week at her house to help her with whatever needed doing and I did them all) but I’d already sent her regular messages saying I was thinking of her and asking how her day was, I’d picked up the phone, I’d turned up on her doorstep – I’d done numerous things to show her I cared and I was there for her. Perhaps if I hadn’t reached in to begin with she wouldn’t have been so forthcoming with her requests.

For me, the lack of friends reaching in during my own time of turmoil didn’t just mean that I didn’t have the support to help me out of the hole I was in, it dug the hole even deeper. At a time when I had lost my husband, my son’s father and a life I had thought I was building, I also lost a best friend and many others distanced themselves. It was devastating. The pressure of divorce, depression and single motherhood proved to be too much for our friendship which had withstood so many other challenges. When friends don’t reach in, it becomes about more than just the lack of support, it’s also about the lack of friendships. I felt unloved and unliked by (almost) all. On good days I still like to think this friend in question did love me, she just didn’t know how to show it. You see, people often treat others how they want to be treated. She’d had no problem reaching out, presumably she expected me to do the same. Conversely, I had no problem reaching in, so I had expected her to do the same. My experience of depression and motherhood are teaching me that treating others how you want to be treated isn’t the best approach. Although it’s much harder, we need to treat people how they want to be treated – we are all different after all. My son may love having his cheeks pinched but I sure as hell don’t, so I wish he’d just quit it.

Reaching in can be as simple as asking the question, other times it takes more effort. People with depression can build exceptionally strong barriers to protect themselves from further disappointment. You might need to be forceful (within reason). Asking what can I do might be a good start for many, but for others you might just need to tell them you are coming over on Tuesday with dinner and just do it. Then comes the really hard part – listening. As humans and as a society we seem to have an obsession with focusing on the positive, but it rarely helps in times of crisis. Whilst positive thinking no doubt has its place, there is a lot to be said for the benefit of off loading and being heard, really heard. Without that how do we know we are worthy of anything? How do we know that our experiences matter? We don’t. And that’s the biggest problem. Once you’re in a bad place emotionally it’s hard to get out. If on top of that you feel ignored, misunderstood or at worst silenced, it compounds everything. Without a solid base of feeling that you and your experiences matter, searching for positives will be futile. Whatsmore, some people just don’t have as many positives in their life (especially at certain times). Some people have shit storms rain down on them for months, or years at a time. Quite often there may be something positive in amongst that, but let’s get real for a minute, why should someone living in a shit storm be as positive as someone who isn’t? Perhaps people want to avoid the ugly truth that the way life and society is set up means some people get dealt a tougher deal. It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve your positive life, but please don’t try to get us to pretend ours is on a par with it.

You don’t even need to live round the corner to reach in. There are things you can do from thousands of miles away. Research support groups, free counselling providers and group therapy sessions, whatever it is that might help your friend in their own specific circumstances. When we are struggling, finding people in similar situations can be life saving. I had no idea about single parenting groups for a good year after becoming a single mum. If someone had just said “this is your local group, email xxx to meet them” it could have made all the difference. It sounds like a small thing, but at the time it was something I was unable to even think of, let alone do. To put it in context, on bad days the curtains didn’t get drawn.

Reaching in is about being the one. Don’t assume your friend has others who are there for them. If they do, great, you’ll be helping them and taking the pressure off their other friends too. If they don’t then you might just be a life saver – literally.

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Notes

This was a hard topic to write about, I don’t usually dish out advice. We are all different and all need different things from friends. I just really hope this post helps someone understand how hard it can be for someone with depression to reach out and how important it can be for their friends to reach in. This post isn’t intended as a slight on people who do or don’t ask for help, it’s merely intended to help us think about what might support our friends with depression. After all, assuming we love our friends, advice that might help us reach them in their time of need can’t be a bad thing, surely.