How to Make Your Depressed Friend Feel Better Even Though They’re Right

With constant tragedies happening in the U.S. along with the climate disaster that’s affecting the entire world, it’s perfectly natural for someone to experience depression in these hellish times. But you should still make sure that your friend with depression can see that things aren’t all that bad, even though they are. Here’s how to make your depressed friend feel better even when you’re also like “….yeah.”

 

Listen.

The most important thing to do when trying to cheer up your friend is active listening. Your friend wants to feel heard more than anything else, and once you hear their thoughts you can better help them to see the positive sides of things, even though they’re totally right about the world being a very scary, dangerous, and disheartening place with no end in sight to the horrors that lay ahead. 

 

Tell them how much they mean to you.

When struggling with depression, it can be more difficult to see how much you mean to other people. That’s why telling your friend how much you love them and all of the positive things about them is super important if you want to switch from talking about the very real and true atrocities being committed all over the nation and think about your amazing friendship instead! Just avoid talking about the state of the world because there’s not much you can argue with that. In fact, the more they talk about it, the more anxious and depressed you become so really try to steer the conversation away from this before your responses become, “Agreed!”

 

 

Be patient.

It’s possible that your kind words won’t always be accepted by your friend who’s struggling with depression, but that’s okay. The main thing you want them to know is that you will support them no matter what, even with the legislation being passed to protect white supremacy, homophobia, guns, and misogyny. Of course, patience will not help these issues, but that’s for another time.

 

So if you have a friend who’s depressed about the state of the world for very good reason, try out these tips that will cheer them up even though they’re totally right about how horrible everything is right now. A licensed therapist would also probably help, too (for you as well)!