Know someone who is depressed? Here is how you can help them cope.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Mental illness has presented us all with a very tough challenge.
00:05But in my love-hate relationship with the illness,
00:09has taught me so much
00:12to be patient for one,
00:14that you are not alone.
00:30What advice would you give to a depressed person?
00:38Of course, you have to listen to the depressed person
00:41because it is important that they can tell
00:45all the sufferings that they feel inside them.
00:48There is a real moral suffering,
00:50so listening and understanding this suffering is important.
00:53But you should not listen to it to the point of adhering to your vision of the world.
00:58A depressed person thinks that she will not heal,
01:01that it's screwed up, that it's her fault,
01:04or the fault of I don't know what.
01:06She has a vision of the world that is a little toxic for herself
01:10and it is important not to absorb this vision of the world.
01:14So we listen, we support, we encourage,
01:17we show that we are here,
01:19but we do not let ourselves be sucked into depression.
01:22What advice would you give to a depressed person?
01:26Do not attack the person by saying,
01:30move, shake yourself.
01:32She can't.
01:33If she is depressed, she has a hard time moving
01:35or she can do it a little bit,
01:37then everything will break quickly.
01:39But still, without shaking her,
01:43it is important to stimulate her
01:45because we know that one of the ways to help depressed people
01:48is to offer them to move,
01:51but to accompany them.
01:53It is to tell them that in the end,
01:55between an hour spent on the couch watching videos or screens
02:00and an hour walking in the forest,
02:03well, in the first case, they aggravate their depression
02:06and in the second case, they improve it.
02:12The problem that depressed people have
02:14when they are offered to accompany them in pleasant activities,
02:18since that's what they have to do,
02:21to go out, to move, to go to the cinema,
02:23the problem they're going to have is that it won't please them.
02:26And so they're going to tell you,
02:28yeah, but I don't feel better after doing it.
02:31And it's true in the short term,
02:33but in the long term, repeating these efforts will help them.
02:36And that's what we have to tell them.
02:38We have to tell them,
02:39we're not doing this to make you feel better
02:41with a magic wand,
02:42we're doing this so you don't keep going down
02:46and lock yourself up against your will,
02:49obviously, in this vicious circle of depression,
02:52since there is a vicious circle in depression.
02:56The less I do it, the more I devalue myself
02:59and the more it depresses me to be unable to do anything,
03:02the more it depresses me,
03:04the less I want to do things,
03:06I'm demotivated, I think it's no use.
03:09So the entourage can help the depressed person
03:13to interrupt, to break this vicious circle
03:16because she's the only one who has trouble.