Hi, Carolyn: One of my friends is in the midst of a long funk. This is no slight period of the blues; this is full-on depression that she tells her friends about on a regular basis. She now is rejecting our invitations, ignoring our calls and wallowing at home every night, and she has an excuse for every suggestion we have when she vents to us.
While some of the girls are still trying to help her out of it, I am on the verge of giving up and realizing that perhaps she doesn’t want to snap out of it. I am blunt with her that her frank discussions with her therapist don’t seem to be doing the trick. I can’t help but feel guilty to give up on her, especially since other girls in the group of friends still are trying to help, yet I feel like it’s not in my nature to work for months to try to change someone who wants to wallow in unhappiness. She was very kind to me during a rough spell I had two years ago, so the guilt is multifaceted. What to do? — Perplexed Friend
Perplexed Friend: “Doesn’t want to snap out of it.” Wow. OK.
May I be blunt, too? From the National Institute of Mental Health’s booklet on depression, under the heading, “How Family and Friends Can Help the Depressed Person”: “Do not . . . expect him or her ‘to snap out of it.’ ” [Booklet is no longer available. CH]
Some complainers are just complainers. But people who are clinically depressed also: reject invitations — or accept but then cancel at the last minute, ignore calls, languish at home, dwell on the negative and see their situation as hopeless. People who are clinically depressed do not choose to be this way, any more than cancer patients choose to have tumors. People who are clinically depressed generally do respond to treatment, but often for treatment to succeed the patient has to believe in it and stick with it — and often shop around for better care — which is a snap until you get to the part about it being an illness whose key symptoms include hopelessness and inertia.
Plus, there’s no one treatment that succeeds with all people. And even a successful treatment can take time to pin down — and then even more time to take effect. And not every depression survivor emerges as Sally Sunshine.
People who are clinically depressed do alienate their friends, yes. They can be tough to have around. Frustrating. Boring. Depressing. But people who are uninformed and judgmental aren’t a party, either.
So please serve your friend by choosing one of the following: Learn about depression so you can understand and help her better (try nimh.nih.gov), or accept that you never really liked her enough to justify working this hard.
Not every friendship is good enough to survive every challenge, and not every friend need come to every rescue. She stuck by you, so ideally you’d stick by her — but if you can’t mean it, then you won’t really be of much help.
