good luck and i hope your friend recovers from her depression

uhm, not sure how to describe it. like "can i help? lets do stuff" 24/7 would be overbearing. space is important is basically what i mean.

good luck and i hope your friend recovers from her depression

i guess i'd avoid being overbearing. just try and treat her as if she were her regular self and maybe make an effort to do stuff with her, like maybe the occasional movie. i really wish i could do more to help but i'm no professional. has she tried taking therapy?

uhm, not sure how to describe it. like "can i help? lets do stuff" 24/7 would be overbearing. space is important is basically what i mean.

good luck and i hope your friend recovers from her depression

thats exactly what I do. just try to keep yourself distracted with audiobooks/books or netflix until you are too tired to think anymore and finally fall asleep. just to wake up the next day, completely tired and do the same stuff all over again.

The Bad News
Unfortunately, depression is a disease that has a great chance of living with you forever. Getting an episode gives you more than a 50% chance of relapse. Relapsing again brings your next chance of relapse to 80%. The average sufferer will have 5-9 episodes in their lives, separated by up to 5 years each. [1] She's likely not getting better forever, no matter what you try.

And unless you've seen a fairly big change in her mood and behavior, she may not actually be getting better right now; I lied during my recovery to make my loved ones feel better.

I really don't want to sound negative or pessimistic, I just want you to be aware of what's happening. Especially since you have romantic feelings for her; the relationship wouldn't be silky smooth.

How to Continue
With that said, trollmobile is pretty much spot on. Be her friend. Really, that's a huge step just from the start, don't leave her. It can be hard trying to be kind to a depressive, and they can lose a lot of friends at the deepest point. It really makes it all the worse. I had a suicide plan, but I was afraid to hurt people I cared about; the fact that even one person truly cared about me and would be upset by my passing saved my life.

An important thing for me was acknowledging the problem, but not making a big deal out of it. Show you care, but don't treat them differently and don't bring it up. Don't make them feel like you're showing pity or anything, let them know you're genuinely happy with them there.

While I say "don't bring it up", it's a bit of a balance. Let them talk when they feel comfortable, of course, but don't let them ruminate for long. Rumination is a huge part of the disease, so if they get in a cycle of negativity with the conversation; go for a brighter-side. This doesn't mean: "I feel like I'm no fun...", "OH NO I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE GREAT". That's causes reassurance seeking. Their brain starts thinking negatively to seek the reward of reassurance, making rumination worse. They need positive engagement.

With regards to talking about your problems, that's fine. She's depressive but she's still your friend. If you need to cry on her shoulder, it won't hurt her. In fact, showing that level of confidence may reinforce the support you're giving her. But don't stay negative for too long, like I said above. You are welcome to say that her hurting hurts you, but word it carefully. Say it so she knows that you care, that you want to help; but don't say it so she thinks she's a burden or feels you're trying to make it about you.

Love
The "let her know how much I love her often" thing, don't. If she knows now and doesn't currently return the favor, from someone that's been on both sides, it's awkward. It will actively prevent romantic interest from developing.

To get it out of your system, just tell her your feelings once, admit that they aren't mutual, and conclude by saying that you will always be her friend. Don't make any promises to wait for her, don't say "the offer is always there". You need to let her know you understand, and stop using the L word. It hurts, but it's necessary to move on.

If you want to win her over, win yourself over. Limit video games/internet time. Subscribe to /r/GetDisciplined. Start working out /r/bodyweightfitness for no gym , eating right. Fix your posture, work on your speech skills. Don't slack in school, spend time studying every night. Watch TED talks, learn to cook or play an instrument. And do it all because you love yourself. Become the man you've always wanted to be because it's good for you. Not only is that who people look up, who people respect, who women love; but that's the only motivation there is in the world worthy enough to keep you going until you achieve your goals.

(THIS WILL BE CONTINUED)

[small][1] - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/[small]

Recovery
This isn't fun and if you're a part of it YOU MUST ASK TO BE A PART OF THE RECOVERY, DO NOT INTERVENE WITHOUT PERMISSION, KNOW YOUR BOUNDS prepare to be ignored or hated some days.

Really fighting depression is hard. Medicine doesn't work SSRIs just killed the last of my emotions and made my dick stop working. . There will be excuses, there will be laziness, there will be crying, there will be discomfort. Changes in lifestyle that are good, but require getting up and doing them.

Really, you need a full library to learn everything, but I'll summarize my best. Like I recommended elsewhere, The Depression Cure by Dr. Ilardi was my biggest tool to recovery.

1) Diet
Eating well is very important, so generally this should be improved where possible. But no worries if she's a sugar lover, there is one very important thing to focus on: Omega-3 fatty acids. The ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids is very important for human brain function. Too much of 3, bad things. Too much of 6, bad things. Unfortunately, 6 is very common in our modern lifestyle, but 3's are... well... not.

At the Vitamin Shoppe I can get about a 3 months supply of Omega-3 fish oil supplements, for $30; it's their generic brand. Fish oil is nasty, so try to get burp-free capsules (they lipid coating of the pill dissolves in the lower intestine, so no fish juice in the tummy). Fish oils have nasty shit raw, so be sure they're molecularly distilled, supercritically extracted if possible.

To make absorption as good as possible, have a decent amount of antioxidants in the diet as well. These are generally healthy as well!

2) Light
We're not nocturnal.
Sunlight is extremely bright and has a huge role with our internal clocks and nutrition. In the morning, about 30 minutes after waking up, it's important to get a healthy dose of 15-30 minutes of sunlight. Try to get an hour or two of sunlight throughout the day. It's not hard, but often inconvenient. An alternative to real sunlight is a sun lamp in the house. If she's having trouble sleeping, this will help with that a bit. Speaking of which...

3) Sleep
A big issue that some people have is that they do things on the bed they shouldn't. Humans have associative memories; Pavlov bitches. We want to play when we see our toys, we want to eat when we see food. If you do things other than sleep and sex in a bed, stop doing that. Beds are for sleeping and you want your brain to make you sleepy when you lay down in them, not perk up and wait for playtime.

Getting 9 hours of sleep a night, is very helpful to keep up the needed energy throughout the day.

4) Exercise
I don't know why this isn't #1, because it is.
Exercise is the #1, single most effective, most powerful, healthy, necessary, proven, and non-regressive tactic for beating depression - bar none. If there is a cure, this is it. If you listen to a single thing I write, it's this. It's that important.

Start with basic 10-minute walks if necessary, work toward "real" exercise as comfort increases. Because depression makes doing hard, she'll likely need a friend to workout with, to make it a fun thing she looks forward to (or at least force her to do it anyway).

5) Friends
Humans are social creatures.
Like I said, she needs good friends right now.

6) Happy Thoughts.
Bad thoughts breed bad thoughts.
I told you earlier, Rumination is the Depressive's worst enemy. It's a vicious cycle that gets out of hand quickly.

Rumination happens when you have nothing else to do and lose control of worry. She needs to pick something up and get to work. Occupy her time with hobbies and friends as much as possible. And when she starts to ruminate, she needs to recognize what's happening, stop, and go do something to take her mind off of it.

This is one of the hardest steps.

(CONTINUING)

At the risk of "citation needed" on the Omega-3 stuff: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19499625

oh and yeah, relapses are a very common issue.
i myself have decided to not go into a romantic relationship yet, since i know i'm not strong enough not to relapse, should it end sourly.

just be kind.
that's really all there is to it.
the only things to really avoid is betraying her trust or severely dissapointing her in other ways.
basically just avoid making her more numb to her emotions than she already is.

depression is a reaction to emotional trauma.
if the emotions hurt you too much, you numb yourself to them, and go into a depression as a result.

as long as you do not severely hurt her feelings through breaking her trust etc, you're fine.

this is not to say if she asks you out you can't say no, it just means you should say "no thanks" rather than "fuck no, not with you"

depression makes love hard.
because you can lose all such strong feelings like love.
ironically, a girl breaking up with me because of her own depression was actually what caused my initial depression all those years ago.

what i'm trying to say is: try to avoid letting her down, but if you have to let her down, do it softly.

i'd love to be more of a help but i don't know much. i guess just try to be receptive and include her in stuff.

i guess i'd avoid being overbearing. just try and treat her as if she were her regular self and maybe make an effort to do stuff with her, like maybe the occasional movie. i really wish i could do more to help but i'm no professional. has she tried taking therapy?

uhm, not sure how to describe it. like "can i help? lets do stuff" 24/7 would be overbearing. space is important is basically what i mean.

good luck and i hope your friend recovers from her depression

i manage to get through that with audiobooks.

thats exactly what I do. just try to keep yourself distracted with audiobooks/books or netflix until you are too tired to think anymore and finally fall asleep. just to wake up the next day, completely tired and do the same stuff all over again.