What Not to Say to Someone Who Is Depressed

Depression is the common cold of mental illnesses. Statistics of Americans with diagnosable symptoms of major depression is staggering. Nearly 20% of Americans experience major depression during their lifetime. As someone who have struggled with it myself I know personally how it feels like to live with it.

During our lowest point, our inclination is to reach out to people close to us, to remind ourselves that we are not alone. Sadly, many people, even those who love us who haven't experienced the darkness of depression misunderstand the illness of depression and believe it is a personal choice the depressed person makes.

So here is a helpful guide to what not to say when someone reaches out to you (those of you who haven't experienced the psychic pain of depression). And for those of you who are struggling with depression, I hope that it can help you educate/inform those around you to become more sensitive.

What Not to Say to Someone Who Is Depressed:

1. “Get busy, and distract yourself.”
2. “Do you want to get better?”
3. “Change your attitude.”
4. “Stop focusing on the bad stuff, and just start living.”
5. “You have everything you need to get better.” 
6. “You can snap out of it. Everyone feels this way sometimes.”
7. “Just pray about it.” 
8. “Why can’t you work?”
9. “You have the same illness as my ______.”

These are bullet points from a longer piece by Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.

Again, I am reposting this illuminating talk by Andrew Solomon on depression.