How To Help A Loved One Through Depression

Brut India

Know someone who is depressed? Here is how you can help them cope.

Transcript

00:00Mental illness has presented us all with a very tough challenge.

00:05But in my love-hate relationship with the illness,

00:09has taught me so much

00:12to be patient for one,

00:14that you are not alone.

00:30What advice would you give to a depressed person?

00:38Of course, you have to listen to the depressed person

00:41because it is important that they can tell

00:45all the sufferings that they feel inside them.

00:48There is a real moral suffering,

00:50so listening and understanding this suffering is important.

00:53But you should not listen to it to the point of adhering to your vision of the world.

00:58A depressed person thinks that she will not heal,

01:01that it's screwed up, that it's her fault,

01:04or the fault of I don't know what.

01:06She has a vision of the world that is a little toxic for herself

01:10and it is important not to absorb this vision of the world.

01:14So we listen, we support, we encourage,

01:17we show that we are here,

01:19but we do not let ourselves be sucked into depression.

01:22What advice would you give to a depressed person?

01:26Do not attack the person by saying,

01:30move, shake yourself.

01:32She can't.

01:33If she is depressed, she has a hard time moving

01:35or she can do it a little bit,

01:37then everything will break quickly.

01:39But still, without shaking her,

01:43it is important to stimulate her

01:45because we know that one of the ways to help depressed people

01:48is to offer them to move,

01:51but to accompany them.

01:53It is to tell them that in the end,

01:55between an hour spent on the couch watching videos or screens

02:00and an hour walking in the forest,

02:03well, in the first case, they aggravate their depression

02:06and in the second case, they improve it.

02:12The problem that depressed people have

02:14when they are offered to accompany them in pleasant activities,

02:18since that's what they have to do,

02:21to go out, to move, to go to the cinema,

02:23the problem they're going to have is that it won't please them.

02:26And so they're going to tell you,

02:28yeah, but I don't feel better after doing it.

02:31And it's true in the short term,

02:33but in the long term, repeating these efforts will help them.

02:36And that's what we have to tell them.

02:38We have to tell them,

02:39we're not doing this to make you feel better

02:41with a magic wand,

02:42we're doing this so you don't keep going down

02:46and lock yourself up against your will,

02:49obviously, in this vicious circle of depression,

02:52since there is a vicious circle in depression.

02:56The less I do it, the more I devalue myself

02:59and the more it depresses me to be unable to do anything,

03:02the more it depresses me,

03:04the less I want to do things,

03:06I'm demotivated, I think it's no use.

03:09So the entourage can help the depressed person

03:13to interrupt, to break this vicious circle

03:16because she's the only one who has trouble.

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