Depression Hurts Everyone

"Who does depression hurt? Everyone."
That's the tag line on a recent commercial for some anti-depressant medication. The gist of the message is that family and friends of a person with depression suffer about as much as the person who actually has depression. The most poignant scene in the commercial for me is the dog who doesn't understand why he and his person can't go out and take a walk.

That may be the most truthful commercial made in quite a while. This past weekend I read a book on borderline personality disorder, but written for people who do not have the disorder, but are connected to someone who does. BPD is often marked by frequent, major crises of the huge-can't-be-easily-ignored variety.

Depression, by contrast, is usually much quieter and it is, at least on the surface, much easier for those around a person with depression to simply go on about their lives as usual, albeit without the ful participation of the person with depression.

That is not the reality, though. Depending on how close the relationship is between you and the person with depression, it can make you act just as depressed if you are not vigilant about taking care. The worry and concern for the person with depression is only one small part of the problem. Simply being around someone who charges the air with negativity and despair - however unintentionally - can cause your own psyche to respond by depressing your usual energy and momentum.

It's a bit like when a person close to you dies. There is a period of time where you feel guilty about enjoying anything because the loved one cannot, and you feel it would be a betrayal to go on laughing and planning for the future when they cannot. The period of mourning is natural and expected for most people.

Living with a person who is severely depressed can have the same effect. If you are used to sharing a worldview with someone - like a spouse - who suddenly has a wildly depressed worldview, it is hard not to fall into the same view. It is harder still to avoid it without feeling guilty, and the feeling of guilt can ultimately result in the same outcome for the non-depressed spouse: a mimicking of the symptoms of fatigue, inability to complete tasks, and so on.

I work at home most of the time. It took a long time for me to realize that my periodic epsiodes of non-productivity, sometimes leading to tragically close calls with our family finances, were directly related to the periods of severe depression my husband goes through. Now, I simply leave the house and work from libraries, coffee shops, parks, or even my car parked in a store lot rather than stay in the house and do nothing because of the hopeless feeling that pervades everything when my husband is going through a bad period.