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An insensitive friend
Hello, I have this friend. She knows my current state right now. I'm actually very lonely, I think it's close to depression because of what is happening into my life right now. I tried to talk eith her once about my problem, I need someone to talk to about it. But then, she just like, shoo itbaway and she just talked about her happy moments right then. And I just said, "okay" Idk what to tell her, I'm really down at that time, and I'm still down just as I wrote this. I didn't talk to her since then, even if she tried to chat/tall with me. I post something recently in IG abt how depressed I am, and there she was, saying that she's missing me. I tried to talk to her again, and yet, she did that again. I'm kind of, "ah okay, she's at it again" She's insensitive. She just ignored how depressed I am, and she just wanted to talk her positive moments again. I just can't be happy anymore like I used to. I even helped her when she was depressed before, even if my patience was running out What should I do? I wanted to cut off our friendship because of that, do you think it's a shallow reason?
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Just talking will not help heal you dear. Your friend is not qualified to listen and offer help. She simply knows to instinctively avoid getting herself in that position. It starts with listening and then the depressed person may call on them all the time when they should be seeing a therapist.
I actually have an adult daughter who is like that, stopping me in conversation if anything I say sounds negative, depressing or too sad or what for her. In the world we live in today, it is getting harder to keep a cheery happy feeling inside when we are bombarded by so much nasty stuff. A person like my daughter or your friend may not be denying it exists, they just realize that they are sensitive enough they might pick up on the feelings and take them on themselves. Can't say your friend is like that but my daughter is. She is what is called an Empath. Read up on it on the net to see what I mean. anything feeling or emotional based, their bodies and minds can absorb if they aren't consciously avoiding it. SOme empaths don't know they are that but still out of instinct because some things make them feel worse, they avoid it.
I know plenty of people feel a therapist is useless and I am not a professional either but have had instances in my life with family members with depression and I can share what little I know so it can give you hope that there may be a life for you free of depression. I don't know if you've always been depressed or if it was a one time situation you couldn't handle mentally and since then you've been depressed but the latter is one you can recover from on your own. If its clinical depression, you will probably require meds but you can still help the situation not be as severe by following a list of things I will show you to do. From the story you told, of things happening now and and thats why you feel this way. I call it situational depression, the kind you can recover from. If you earnestly work at it, there should be immediate results you can feel. What I share with you is stuff I learned on the internet and tried myself when a situation made me feel depressed. So when my now grown daughter had her first boyfriend dump her, she ended up in depression. So she used her one free visit through her job, to a therapist to reach out for help. I'd told her what to do but hey, I'm just Mom, what do I know. Yet when she saw the Dr. and he realized she couldn't afford to come back and also that hers was a situation based depression, he gave her a list of the very same things I will be sharing with you. She came to me amazed and showed me the list from the Dr. I am adding one thing not on his list and that is hugging because it also has the same healing effect.
Starting with hugging, I am talking about not the barely pat on the back without bodies touching but the total enveloping bear hug that last more than 3 or 4 seconds but at least 30 seconds to a full minute. Nice thing about this therapy is you can't give one and not get one. People end hugs like this too soon, when they start feeling uncomfortable but that is the point to get past and that feeling goes away to be replaced by a happy giddy feeling. This is how I pretty much give hugs now. What happens when you do the hugs or any of the other things I will mention is that the storage reserve of feel good hormones that your body naturally creates has run very low or been totally used up and when we are not doing things that help encourage the growth of new replenishing feel good hormones for your brain, then you will feel depressed and the word depressed also means low such as when we say an area has economic hardships or it is a depressed region. So the word simply means the levels are low or totally used up. In clinical depression, no matter what a person does, it doesn't really help much to build up the feel good hormones if at all so thats when meds are prescribed. From what you said, it doesn't sound like you have had this for years and years. So try the hugs. You won't feel like doing it and this is when you have to force yourself at first to do any of the following.
Movement: This can be running or jogging, or dance, any movement as it will release new feel good hormones inside of you that you should be able to feel right away. Now I am grandma age but I didn't care how silly I looked so I decided to try skipping like I did as a kid. It was harder now that I am older but for the brief bit I did it, I felt giddy and laughter bubbled up in me and I was giggling for quite a while after. Once those good feelings take hold, you no longer care what anyone thinks of you.
Music: I have found in the past that I have favorite songs which when listening to the melody, even when feeling good, it still affects me deep inside, My heart feels light like a helium filled balloon. I am not talking of the lyrics or words but just a melody that makes you feel great, feel strong, feel triumphant, etc...good feelings. I will give my own example, One of these songs that do it for me is Clocks by Coldplay. Not the words, but the melody, and I will put it on repeat and listen to it around 3 times and I feel a bit better after that.
Singing: This is plain and simple, just singing along to your favorite songs. Yes, I know you don't feel like it at first but it is important.
Laughter: Find reasons to laugh. Laughter is good medicine for a reason. It helps raise these low levels. So watch your favorite comedies, get on the net and find comedy acts to watch. Talking about the hard belly ache laughter here.
These methods work to raise the levels of your feel good hormones but they are also a good practice to use often when feeling good. This would be like topping off the gas tank when there is still fuel left. So I now incorporate all of this into my life and I have never run dry and felt depressed since. Our bodies were created to be able to handle the not so nice things that happen to us in life, that can't be avoided sometimes, and in our brain our neuro transmitters need to be able to work and do their job properly, releasing the feel good hormones when ever you face something stressful. The way the world is now, its stressful just attending school, driving to work for starters. If most days have some level of stress, then you need to be refilling, refueling so to speak on a daily basis. Once you have snapped out of depression, then you can clearly evaluate your friend on more than just this one point to see if this is a person is worth being around. I would guess she is because what she chooses to talk about are positive moments. Maybe she restricts in to herself. But if you aren't full of your own positive moments to dwell on, then look around for other people involved in postive things. You might want to avoid watching the news as it is nothing but negative stuff. If you want to watch something that will raise your spirits, I suggest watching a free show on Facebook hosted by Mike Rowe of 'Dirty Jobs' fame. It is called Returning the Favor and high lights the work of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help affect a difference in some area of their neighborhood, from hand made soaps for the homeless shelters, to camps for veterans and their families, to classroom supplies in a warehouse for teachers, to food banks, or cooked meals taken to first responders at a crisis like a big fire and the list goes on. Its all volunteer and donations or people putting in their own money so they are usually given exactly what they need plus money, even if the need is a new vehicle or repairing a roof. Here is the link in case you want to check it out, I hope you do:
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Good luck dear. And I would sincerely like to hear back from you in the future to see how well this works for you. If it doesn't help at all, you would need to be a psychologist.
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