How to Help Someone With Depression.

Depression Defined. What is depression? What are the signs and symptoms of a depressed person? 

Major depression is a mood disorder that causes someone to feel persistently sad for a long time( at least two weeks) , and of the many symptoms the most common signs you will recognize from friends are their being less social or less interested about things they really love to do. A depressed friend might decline an invitation to meet up, cancel plans again and again, or ignore calls or texts. In person that person might snap at you, drink excessively, get upset about the smallest things, or seem more anxious, irritable, flat and just really  negative and down. Friends can sometimes take that personally and feel very impatient and frustrated. That's something people need to notice. If you feel different when you are with them, depression might be going on. 

How should you ask if someone is depressed?

The wrong way to start the conversation is by focusing vaguely on how the person seems emotionally, which can sound accusatory, such as; you've been so down/ stressed/  irritable lately... What's going on?Are you ok?

Open-ended questions are better, experts say, such as, ''How are you doing lately?'' ''Are you struggling with anything? Can i help you?'' ''You just don't seem like yourself lately, Is everything okay?'' Focus on specific behaviors so your friend doesn't feel judged, you want to try as much as possible not to put them on the defensive and give them the opportunity to respond.

Examples are;

''You used to to love our nights out, but it seems like you are not interested in coming anymore, Is something going on? Do you want to talk about it?''

''I know you got promoted recently, which probably came with a lot of responsibilities, and i've noticed you seem stressed out. Do you think you might be depressed?''

See what your friend is willing to share. If they don't want to talk about it, or if they brush you off, just say, ''I'm here for you'', and move on to another topic.

What you should do when your friend tells you he/she is depressed.

It's really important that you don't feel like you have to fix it, but just be curious and listen to your friends experience. You should ask questions like, What has it been like for you? Are you able to function at work? How are you doing at school? These should lead to the most important question to ask; Has it ever gotten so bad that you feel like hurting yourself, or you want to end things?. A lot of people wrongly think that asking about suicide will lead someone to the idea to do it. But experts say that's not how suicide works and that, it's really really important to ask about suicide directly. By not asking you could isolate a friend even more and cause the person to spiral even further to suicidal thoughts.

One thing you should know is that even if you do everything right, even if you follow all the right procedures, nothing is actually guaranteed to ''work''. The silver lining is that anyone with a mood disorder has a better chance of surviving with a support system, rather than without one. Depression kills and we must try hard to save our friends, relatives, work colleagues, from any form of depression.