258. Five Things Not to Say to Someone Who is Depressed

1. “Don’t worry. We all get depressed some time or another.”  That’s like telling someone with diabetes that everyone has diabetes some time or another. Depression is not just having a blue day. It is a condition that cripples the emotions, ravages the body, and rattles the mind. Medication is often needed to treat it, like medication is needed for a thyroid condition or high blood pressure.
2. “If you think positively instead of negatively, you can pull yourself out of depression.” A person in clinical depression, as opposed to situational depression, cannot pull himself out of it by thinking positively. It would be like telling someone who has diabetes that if she just thinks positively, she can pull herself out of it. Seriously depressed people have a black fog within them and around them that blankets all aspects of their life in hopelessness and despair. They need help from professionals.
3. “A lot of people have it so much worse.” This makes a depressed person feel guilty. Why not say to a woman who has just lost her husband to a massive heart attack, “You should count your blessings that he didn’t die a slow and painful death?”
4. “Happiness is a choice.” Clinically depressed people — regardless of lifestyle, income, gender, location, political or religious views — deal with the same feelings? I’m tired, my life has no meaning, I feel doomed, hopeless, worthless, and I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. Nobody chooses to feel this way. Even a person who has everything you can imagine to make herself happy can be gobbled up by depression. It’s not a choice; it’s a condition.
5.  “You should exercise more.” Exercise is good for depression, but people don’t become depressed because they are lazy and couch potatoes. I know very happy non-depressed couch potatoes who think climbing a flight of stairs is challenge enough.