Justin Andress
In spite of the strides that we as a society have made in understanding mental health, there’s still a lot that modern science and (to an even greater extent) modern society doesn’t understand about the hardships of mental illness. Something like depression, for instance, is a largely misunderstood affliction that’s easy to exacerbate with your behavior. Sure, we’ve all been a little down before, but people ensnared with depression are suffering on an entirely different level. How you interact with an afflicted person can have a big impact on their actions and behavior. Although it may sounds supportive you may mean well, here are twenty things to cross off your list of things to say to someone with depression.
1. “Lots of people have it worse than you.”
Even if the person you’re talking to isn’t clinically depressed, it’s very likely that this statement has never actually resulted in the desired outcome in its entire history. When your brain is constantly sending you signals that elicit emotions of insecurity, adding the troubles of the entire world on top of that definitely doesn’t help you snap out of it.
