Just as any depression patient must learn to accept his or her illness, and work on overcoming it, so you must accept that they have a mood disorder. Since recovering is really a matter of work on the patient's part, it's impossible to start doing this work until one accepts that one must do it. By the same token, you will find it impossible to deal with someone else's depression, unless you accept that he or she has an illness--a very real one.

   From what I've seen, this is one of the hardest things for friends and family to do. I will not kid you into thinking that this is easy. It's not. Accepting an illness in someone else, that you don't understand and never will (hopefully), is not a simple or trivial matter. Above all, don't blame yourself for it. No one can "make" another person depressed, so don't fall into the trap of thinking that you caused it.

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