Have you ever tried to help someone with depression? Because I have. It happened to be my mom, but it can be your friend, uncle, brother, sister, cousin or anyone else with a head.  We all think talking is gonna lift them up at first, until we experience it ourselves. Then we know that what you have to do is walk with them, go places, eat things, play games, and any other activity you can think of with them. A little backstory: my mom is about 50ish and a raging heroin addict. She stops for a while, starts back up, and stops again.  I can’t really use the word “clean” for her because, instead of being clean, she just fights the urges; there’s no plan in place, no mental change, just reactionary will power. 

Now, not to say your depressed person has to be an addict for this to help, but it would be extra helpful if they were.  I really only have one step for you if you want to help them, truly an easy and simple fix to all of your problems involving these interactions, something no one really tells you because it’s considered a “harmful idea,” but, in reality, not enough people end up doing this. 

Stop.

Day after day you slave away at trying to fix this person, they fail, you help, they hurt you, you forgive.  I’m here to tell you that you’ve tried hard enough. You’ve done all you can for them.  This doesn’t mean to give up entirely; however, it does mean to not lose focus of yourself, they are someone else, they shouldn’t be your main priority.  I am currently 14, and I’m writing this from experience. My mom has neglected me emotionally and been on drug binges for my entire life; my dad has been in prison, so she’s had no one to lean on but me.  I’ve spent all those years battling depression, PTSD, anxiety and plenty of other mental issues. 

Even through all of it, my first priority was my mom.  I felt that she had “always been there for me” because she bought me all I wanted, that I owed it to her for doing that.  If she ever needed to talk, I was there.  She came home from a drug binge and needed to be pulled back in mentally? I had her.  She started slipping off and sleeping more, going to work less, and drinking? I was there, waking her up, begging her to go, and pulling bottles away from her.  And all of that was a priority for me.  It wasn’t “after I was done with homework.”  It was 24/7 worrying, constant fights inside my own head because I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, skipping school due to lack of sleep because I was up all night making sure she didn’t go anywhere. And all of this led to me falling deeper and deeper into depression, my grades dropping even though I was capable of straight A’s, more time distracting myself, less time interacting with people.  And finally, after months of hard work on my mom… she relapsed again.  So after that I realized that I no longer needed to focus on her because I wasn’t really helping. My efforts were, well, wasted.