You are listening to Take Out Therapy, speedy sessions for everyday problems. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. In my role as a private practice therapist, I don't really just tell people what to do, but in this podcast, I'm doing things differently.
In the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations. Keep listening for awesome tips on how to live a more intentional and less reactive life. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee it might help you.
Listen up. Hi, friends. I hope you're enjoying this fine day.
Last week's episode, we talked about, oh, I felt like I barely scratched the surface talking about what depression actually is. I almost like re-recorded that episode because it was so ... There's just so much to it that you can't cover very much in the format of a 20-minute podcast. I'm back again today, guys.
I want to talk about how we can help people with depression because here's the thing. It's getting kind of serious with the depression in our country right now. We all know someone or know someone who knows someone.
You probably might even know someone, but not know that you know someone. How do you like that? We all are close to depression, you guys. It's in our life.
It's in the lives of the people that we know and love. It's really hard because we feel pretty helpless, which, I mean, there's ... Yes, we are kind of helpless over somebody else's mental state, right? That's true, and it's really difficult. I think that a lot of times, we just kind of avoid it because it's also really frustrating to love someone or care about someone who's depressed because what happens is that we kind of see the ... Let's see.
How can I say this? We see the people that we love as sometimes more than they see themselves, right? That is so difficult. It's frustrating. Frankly, it can cause us to get pretty disconnected with people that have depression, right? When someone is not kind of holding themself in high regard, it's really hard to hold them up.
We're going to talk today about how to help someone with depression while also maintaining good boundaries because depression is the leading cause of disability in this country. In people between the ages of 15 and 44, I believe the current statistic is. That's kind of a big deal, right? So many people have depression, and what's it doing to our country, right? If we just talk about our country, if we're not even ... Let's not consider all the other countries.
No, but seriously, what is depression doing to our culture, our workforce, right, and our relationships because that's kind of important. I think relationships are the most important thing, right, is that we as humans, we really need to be connected to each other, and when we're not, it's devastating. So let's talk about this.
We don't ... So there's reasons that are valid and that I just want to highlight as to why we kind of aren't able to help people with depression very well and why people are just really suffering on the sidelines. One is that we don't have a ton of education around the dynamics of depression. We kind of have a cultural stereotype, frankly, about what depression looks like, and I will just tell you, and I told you in the last episode, it doesn't look like that.
So just so you know, people with depression, they behave in all these different kinds of ways that might not look like depression, and I think I'm going to talk about in the next episode, next week, I'm going to talk about teenagers in depression because they really don't act like the stereotype. So I think we have a lack of education about what depression looks like. Oh, right, and there's also that stigma, which you know I love, the stigma.
No, it's basically like we don't talk about depression. Depression is like a weakness. Yeah, that kind of makes it hard for people that are depressed to get help, to ask for help.
We don't kind of know how to hold depression in a way that doesn't make people feel bad about having it. The other kind of reason why we're not getting in there and knowing what to do about depression is that it's scary. And so, and you know what I'm talking about.
It's scary, right? Because what we know in the media and in our lives is that sometimes people with depression take their own lives, and that is scary, right? And so we kind of feel really helpless within that because obviously like if somebody wants to take their own life, they're going to figure out a way to do that. And we can't, sometimes there's just nothing we can do, and that is really helpless, right? And so I'll just say that sometimes, you guys, we get really kind of triggered by people with depression, right? Because they're kind of scary and we feel really powerless. And I'll just tell you, powerlessness is a trigger for most people.
Like raise your hand if you like to feel powerless. I don't. I'll raise my hand first.
So those are just some reasons why we don't like really know what to do. And so we kind of tend to not do a whole lot in terms of supporting people with depression. And the other way we go is like doing way too much to the point where we do kind of get this idea that we can like, we can help somebody.
Like it's our job to help somebody else feel better. And I'll just say that one of the best ways that we can help people with depression is just to have good emotional and logistical boundaries. And so what that basically means is that we need to understand where we stop and the other person begins.
So there's a way to help people and have good boundaries at the same time. That's probably a whole other session. The other thing, if you kind of know somebody who has depression, one thing to watch out for is big life transitions.
So even if somebody kind of didn't exhibit depression before a big life transition, very often people experience like an episode. We'll just call it an episode, although I think that's kind of a, I don't know, it's a very stigmatized word. But we experience periods of depression after transition.
So like a lot of people, you guys get depressed after pretty happy events like weddings. Right. Well, births, I could do a whole other thing about that.
Postpartum is a real deal. People sometimes, you know, enter a phase, a very low phase. And I always say as a therapist, like that's there for a reason, you know, but we get depressed after big transition.
So just watch the people in your life. And if they have a big transition, one of the ways you can kind of show up for them is just to kind of be there, right, to just reach out and ask like, hey, how's it going? Right. Divorce is a major life transition.
So is retirement. I could go on the death of a spouse. Right.
These are all places where people tank. We all tank one time or another. You guys.
So, yeah. And then learn about boundaries. Right.
So some of the ways that we can like help in person, like we can be with somebody is to just hold space for them. So let me tell you a little bit about what I mean by that. If you haven't heard me say this before, it's like basically you're holding a container for somebody and like however they feel, it just goes in there.
Right. And the container is not your body. So those are boundaries come in the container that you're holding for somebody who's suffering is not you.
You're not the container, because if you take in all the suffering of another person, then my friend, you will feel very, very bummed out. Right. That's not going to work.
So but if you think of it kind of like I'm just going to be here to listen to whatever you have. And then the other thing that has to happen here is you just kind of got to be open. Right.
To every person has a different experience in life. And it doesn't matter what you think of your depressed friend's experience. That's their experience.
So being open basically means you can just like kind of see what their perspective is like and just put that in the container. You don't need to. This is very, very important.
Right. We don't need to fix anything. We just have to be there, listen and hold space.
Right. Separately outside of ourselves. We can just listen and show compassion.
And then I think it's really important when you're trying to when you have this intention of like being there for somebody who's depressed, just go ahead and offer to help. Just but don't say, let me do this for you or let me do this for you. Ask the person what would be helpful for them.
Right. Because frankly, like when I'm down and out, I don't really want to go to a party. So like if a friend came over and was like, come on, get dressed, get up, let's go.
No, that is actually not what I need. What I need is like a good bag of Epsom salts, right. To put in my bath or what I need is like some tasty tea.
So what we can start to do is instead of assume what people need, just ask them, like what is it that I can do for you right now? I know this is a tough time. Right. And then they can kind of ask for what they need.
And then you can just say, I'm going to check in with you every now and again and see what it is that you need. Right. And then the other thing that you can offer and then listen to the answer of what it is, is do you need some resources? So one of the things you guys about that sucks about depression is it saps our ability to take action.
Basically, I'll just say it that simply. It sucks out all of our ability to actually do something. So for some people, it's really helpful to to just be given some resources.
Right. Like here's a number for this or here's, you know, I don't know, like a lot. Frankly, a lot of people help depressed people get into therapy if that's what they need, to be honest.
Right. They will call. They will set up the appointment.
They will bring the person to the appointment willingly. Right. Somebody who has to want to get help.
But if somebody wants to get some help, if they're that depressed and they ask for that, that is so helpful. Right. To a point.
So here's here's kind of what I want to say is that if something in you is kind of resistant to the idea of taking it that far, then don't offer. Let somebody else do that. Right.
So we all kind of have to know where our boundary is. So I could very well kind of find some help. And then I would like with somebody in my life, right, to if they asked if that would be supportive or helpful, then to help them get those numbers, get those resources.
And then that's kind of where my boundary is. Right. Like I'm not probably going to be making the appointments or taking them in there.
But if they were super bad off, like I might. Right. So you kind of have to figure out how you feel about where your boundary is.
That's the important piece. And then if somebody needs more than that. You know what, that's that's kind of not your responsibility.
And also you could give them resources to go get more support, basically. Does that make sense? So we don't like to leave. I'm not suggesting that we just kind of leave depressed people hang in.
But I'm also not suggesting that we over caretake because there is an empowerment that has to happen for for somebody in depression. And we have to just kind of allow for them to have their own process. The other thing, and I'll just touch briefly on this, but when somebody is very, very depressed or when somebody feels concerningly depressed to you, I would be super supportive of you being direct about suicide.
So we don't talk about suicide, you guys. And that's kind of where the stigma is. And we don't even we don't even want to say that word.
And we need to we need to say, right, we need to be able to check in with somebody and say, are you thinking about suicide? Right. Have you thought at all about suicide? It's very common for people with depression to to think about suicide without ever going there, just so you know. But when we start talking about it is it kind of allows them to process it in a different way and talk about it out loud rather than just being all stuck in their head.
So if you don't feel comfortable doing that, then maybe find somebody who might. Right. That would be super helpful.
But just talking about suicide and go ahead and learn about suicide. Go online. There's stages to it.
Like, you know, I mean, have you ever met a teenager? Right there. They're always kind of saying, what's the point of this? Right. I don't even want to live anymore.
And so that's not that is that is like on the very low end of the concerning scale. Right. But when actions start to get taken and it's looking more serious and again, I'm not I'm not going to go into this, but go and get the information.
I'm going to put some resources on my website. Right. So just again here, I feel like I've done a tip of the iceberg, but hopefully it's been a little bit of insight about how to help someone who's suffering from depression because, you know, there's an opportunity here for us to connect.
Depression is a disease of disconnection. Right. And so if that disease of disconnection is the leading cause of disability in our country, we are disconnected.
Let's create some community here by opening the doors to a different dialogue and helping each other get moving in the direction of healing. Right. We can heal ourselves by our through our connection with each other and by holding space for each other.
Right. So anyway, I hope this was helpful. It's hard.
It's really, really hard to have somebody that you know or love suffering from depression. Many of us have like a parent who's suffering from depression, which again could be a whole other conversation. Right.
That's a thing. And it's all very difficult. So please, before you take care of somebody else, just take care of yourself, friend.
Make sure that you have what you need. Support yourself in all the different ways that feel good to you. OK, I'll see you next time.
You guys know I'm a total anxiety activist. Well, did you know that anxiety is the most common mental health diagnosis in the U.S.? Almost 7 percent of our population has a reported problem with anxiety. And let me say only around 35 percent of people get treatment for it.
You guys, here's what I want to tell you. Anxiety is highly treatable. You can absolutely get get through it, get over it and heal from it.
I created a little group on Facebook. If you have any interest in learning more about how to heal from anxiety, I'm like all fired up giving people lots of information and resources on that. So come join us.
The Anxiety Recovery Club on Facebook. Thanks. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case. I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help. Please subscribe and review the podcast.
Recommend it to your friends and family and share it on social media. We're living in the digital age, people. Let's do some good where we can.
All right. Visit my website at RebeccaHunterMSW.com to have access to resources, videos and the show notes if that interests you. And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy.
Thanks.
