Since I’ve been there, I have a few ideas of what might help your depressed friend. Depression is never something we want to walk through, but it’s here among us and there is something we can do. I’d like to share 5 ways to understand and help your depressed friend.

Here are a few ways to understand your friend a little better and offer her a little hope on the hard days. Knowing and expressing these thoughts will take it from, “I just don’t get it” to “I don’t get it, but I want to.”

5 Ways to Understand & Help Your Depressed Friend

1. She wants to feel normal, and would snap out of it if she could.

If your depressed friend could feel better, she would! Give her space and permission to be her. Depression takes time to process and time to heal. For many, it is a life-long battle. See it as a battle and pray for your friend daily. 

2. She needs a friend to say, “You’re going to be okay.”

Sometimes saying nothing at all is interpreted as, “I don’t care enough to really talk about your problems.” Let your friend know you are interested in her and her life. Acknowledge her pain and speak truth over her. 

3. She doesn’t want you to fix it. She just wants someone to listen and be her friend.

Don’t try to make her explain what she is going through. Just be there and offer a listening ear. Love her. Show up and listen up. Let her talk. 

4. Just because she smiles, laughs, and has a good day doesn’t necessarily mean everything is better.

So you finally work out a time for a girls night out and you have a fabulous time. Your friend who you know is going through a rough patch laughs, joins in the conversation, and acts like her old self again. You assume she’s overcome depression and go on with life business as usual. The problem is that many times depression ebbs and flows. You can have a good day sandwiched between really difficult days. Be sensitive. And don’t give her a guilt trip when she does seem to have a good time.

5. She doesn’t want you to feel sorry for her. She wants someone to genuinely care about her.

Your friend needs to know you love her just the way she is and that you care. She wants you to pray for her, listen to her, tell her the truth, and encourage her. Simple ways to encourage her: 

Write a note

Send a “thinking of you” text

Invite her out and help arrange the details (where to go, childcare, transportation…)

Drop off fresh flowers

Make her dinner

Give her a gift

Simple acts of love show her that she is important when the enemy is telling her that no one cares about her. Your kind deed might be the one thing that helps her though the day. 

Who in your life can you encourage today? Even if none of your friends are depressed, all of these things will work in any friendship. Genuinely caring about someone goes a long way. 

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:35

Love & Blessings,