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Ways to Support Someone With Depression

Volunteering helps depression, even though that may seem counterintuitive at first. You may feel overwhelmed at the thought of helping others when you can barely help yourself. However, volunteering can be a good and helpful way to cope with your own depression. Turning your focus outward brings a new perspective into your life, and this perspective of volunteering can help your depression.
Your child has been diagnosed with depression. Now what? You're overwhelmed. You already have a depression diagnosis yourself. How can you cope with both your depression and that of your child's? Take a breath. Relax. Let's walk through this together.
Finding gifts for depressed people can be confusing, but with the holiday season in full swing, some of you may be looking for thoughtful ideas for presents to give to someone who has been diagnosed with depression. Perhaps you yourself have depression and are trying to figure out what types of gifts you'd like to receive this year. I decided it might be helpful for me to share some of my favorite present ideas with you so you can give gifts to depressed people that make a difference to them.
Should you share your suicidal thoughts? How will the choice to share affect your depression? Whether we face suicidal thoughts or have had one or more suicide attempts, the decision of whether or not to share these experiences affects us and how we deal with our depression. 
Is it really possible to build self-confidence when you have depression? Yes, it can be done. While the challenge is greater for those of us with depression, it truly is within our ability to build up confidence within ourselves. Now that we know building self-confidence is possible, let's find out how we can start working towards that goal today.
The depression battle is fierce, as those of us with depression know. How can we win this battle and conquer depression? I have discovered three effective strategies that are helping me win the depression battle.
We should fight depression stigma now because May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the spotlight is on mental health and depression stigma. That means there is a greater opportunity to reach a wider audience about how we can work together to fight the stigma surrounding depression and other mental illnesses. With this in mind, how can we best use the time that we have during the month of May to fight depression stigma?
Many times people say things that make depression worse. These things they say are hurtful or seem insensitive to those of us with depression. Whether intentional or not, it still stings and can even lead us to a major depressive episode. There are still many misconceptions about depression, and one of the reasons I write is so that I can help people learn about and better understand depression and what it really is. One way to do this is by offering suggestions of what to say to someone with depression, which I wrote about in my previous post. Another is to let people know what things they should not say to people who have depression.
Depression makes it difficult to practice self-love, particularly on the darkest of days. When a seemingly simple activity such as getting out of bed is overwhelming, it is hard to think about practicing self-love; however, by doing small things to show ourselves love, nourishing our minds and bodies can be done.
Sometimes people don't know what to say to someone with depression. Those of us with depression typically have family and friends who want to encourage us; however, all too often we find that even well-meaning people end up saying the very things we don't need to hear. When this happens, it can leave both the person who spoke the words and the person to whom they were spoken feeling quite discouraged and possibly angry or upset. While I'd like it if all people could somehow know what to say to someone with depression, that's not realistic. Instead, we need to give them suggestions and guidelines. I've come up with some things that I would like to hear as someone with depression.