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Mental Health
Guidance
Don't be afraid to reach out and take hold of a helping hand
It can be very difficult to see someone you care about becoming distressed and unwell, but you don’t need to be an expert on mental health to offer support. Often, small everyday actions can make the biggest difference.
Different people want support in different ways, so ask how you can help meet your loved one's individual needs. For example, it might be useful to help them prepare for a doctor’s appointment, but this may not be the best course of action every time. If your friend wants to get more exercise, you could do this together, or if your partner is affected by lack of sleep, you could help them get into a regular sleeping pattern.
We anonymously asked people what depression felt like to them. Sometimes, you feel nothing at all. People who are struggling with depression will often talk about a complete lack of emotion and feeling. Here are their first-hand accounts of what it felt like to go through depression:
“Nothing, that was what I felt. All day, every day, NOTHING.”
After a while they might even forget what it feels like to feel, leaving them unable to know how to respond to things that happen each day:
“I didn’t have the energy, empathy or motivation to feel happy for my friends. I vividly recall a friend telling me she’d got engaged and I felt nothing. I think I said ‘congratulations’ but in a dull, emotionless way that led her to believe I didn’t care. And I didn’t. But that wasn’t me talking, it was my depression. I really hurt her but I didn’t intend to, I’d just lost the ability to care for and be happy for her. You can see me in all of her wedding photos. The unsmiling bridesmaid. I wanted so much to be able to smile and feel happy for her but I just couldn’t remember how.”
Often, people who are struggling with depression will talk about their life as if they are living in a kind of dream (or nightmare) state where everything feels somewhat meaningless and surreal:
“When you’ve been devoid of feeling for a while, things take on a different meaning – well a lack of meaning really. Until you’ve lost all feeling, you don’t realise how important a part of the fabric of day to day life our thoughts, feelings and emotions are. I felt like I was kind of sleepwalking. Awake enough to interact with those around me, but never feeling fully present or real.”
Many people use analogies like being stuck under water or down a well to explain the feeling of distance from the rest of the world."
It’s common for people to talk about feeling absent from their own lives. Depression can make you feel like an outsider looking in rather than an active participant:
“It was like watching a TV show of my life. I didn’t necessarily like all of the episodes but I felt incapable of changing them – like some producer had made the decisions, not me. It all just washed over me as I watched on.”
Just occasionally, you have happy moments when it’s all okay
People who struggle with depression sometimes have minutes, hours, or days when things feel real again and they can see a glimpse of what it feels like not to be depressed.
“Every now and then the clouds would clear, and it was like I was alive again. It never lasted long. At first I would just feel so low knowing it would pass, but after a time I learned to grab these moments of respite and do all my living whilst they were with me.”