I had some really good friends and some people I could rely on really well who were always there to say, like I understand or not necessarily that they understood, but what they could say to me was , I may not know exactly what you are feeling, but I want you to know objectively, here’s what’s going on. Objectively, you are a worthwhile person. Objectively, people care about you. And whatever subjective feelings you are having right now, just know that those are totally not valid, that’s not reality. So I think, yeah, it was just a mix of those two things, just valuing myself and knowing I was valued by other people. Which can be really hard, I think, because if I hadn’t had that group of friends at that time, I think it would have been a lot more difficult to recognize.

My dad has always been like, my number one advocate so it was really nice just having a lot of support from him and just having support from him as somebody who was willing to say, I have no idea what, where this is coming from, I have no background in this I can’t comprehend it, but I really want to be here to support you through whatever you’re going through. So that was invaluable to me.

I mean like, in all honesty, I don’t want someone to understand because that sucks to know what that feels like. I just want them to be supportive, which is different than understanding. Being supportive is not even the willingness to understand, it’s the willingness to never understand and to still be there.

But to have someone who can be there and say, I know what you’re going through is ok and even if I don’t understand the pain that you’re feeling, just know that I’m here for you anyways to recognize that you are going through something and that I’m going to be supportive by being here with you. Unless you want me to go sit over in the other room, then I’ll go sit over in the other room and you can be over here by yourself and I’ll be supportive from you wherever you want me to be supportive from basically. Because sometimes you want to be alone, you’re like, No I need to cry for ten minutes in my room. Leave me alone. You know, or you know, sometimes you want them to sit with you while when you cry. It just varies, it depends. You know, it’s how your feeling which can be so many different things and all the things all at once. So it can be overwhelming in so many ways.

Well I don’t think you can do it solely by yourself, I think you need somebody who actually can support you and not just judge you basically to say like, you’re normal, you’re okay. You know because when you feel like this, you feel like nobody has felt like this. No one could possibly be as low as feel right now. So somebody who understands, maybe somebody who’s been there and then coping mechanism, a healthy one, you know, like an outlet you know? Whether that’s talking to somebody, whether that’s exercise, whatever. I think there’s positive ways to deal with this

I wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t like this, but he’s just always really been there to hold my hand and support me without doing something for me and I think that’s what I really needed in a relationship. Someone to be supportive and loving and be kind of a coach in some ways to remind me, but not enabling in any kind of way.

I mean I know that not everybody can have a partner at the time when they need it you know it doesn’t just happen that way but to have anybody, a friend, a parent, anybody that can just remind you to just take a deep breath you know give yourself a break cut yourself some slack, I think that’s been one, a very big thing in helping me realize, ok just let me just take a step back here and before I get myself all worked up before I’m beating myself up, let me just remember that you know everybody has made a mistake at some point.

Yes, yeah, yeah that, that’s totally a common theme there, because I think in some ways I’ve always sort of felt, like you know, you’ll, you’ll be revealing something to a friend that you think is kind of getting closer and you disclose something and they go, Oh, I totally get where you’re coming from. And on the one hand it’s easy to see how they are trying to be supportive and trying to be there for you but on the other hand you want to go no you have no idea what I’m going through you, you live a completely different life and even though you think the story sounds familiar, chances are you have no idea what I am feeling. So I think, yeah it was just nice having people around me who could just say not necessarily that they thought they knew everything I was going through and that they knew all about me, but that they could say, My experience is different than yours, but here I am, I want to help you I want to be emotionally present for you.

And then I had a friend tell me, you know [name] what you really need to do is just go on a climbing trip. And I’m like, first off, spending eight hours in the car with my self sounds awful, you know, like that sounds like a nightmare to me, so I don’t need to go on a climbing trip. I want, you know, my therapy program and my medication. That’s the treatment I need. I don’t need to go on a climbing trip. So, it’s like, you know, she’s just trying to be helpful, like trying to cheer me up.

Yelling at someone is never helpful [laughter]. I there was some instances where my family was frustrated with me and maybe they would and I understood why they did it, they were frustrated, so they would just sort of blow up and that’s not the best thing to do.

Blaming the person that is feeling depressed is never really the best thing either. Like don’t tell them this is your fault you’re doing this to yourself that’s not a good thing to do that was hard.

Maybe sometimes the best thing to do is just if you’re trying to help someone but you just can’t just walk away for a bit or direct them towards something that can help, just don’t blow up on them.