How to Handle People with Depression

Disclaimer: what I wrote below is based on what I experienced, not based on scientific data.

As one of the people with depression, I easily feel sad at random time even with a thing that normal people may think that the issue is not a big deal.

When people with depression is trying to disclose the feeling, what they want is only one thing: VALIDATION. To validate what they feel is okay. It is okay to feel sad even due too a simple thing. Try to put yourself in their shoes, imagine their shoes in their ruined situation. Never try to compare your shoes with them, it's totally different. Like yours is a sunny day, everything is okay, theirs are rainy day with and extreme storm, every thing is ruined. Thus, it is completely opposed. To have the empathy is what they want. 

I know, as a normal people with no big issue in your life or perhaps you do have problem but you  already successfully resolved your problem, you would like to give advice, or to be more heartless you want to judge their feeling that it is not valid. As you may think that the problem is not that big, so you ask them not to mind it and move forward.

That's not what we want. Please, don't do that. If you invalidate our feeling, what happen next is not what you expect, I know you expect us to move forward to forget the sadness and be happier, but what really happen is your judgement instead makes us more depressed, we started to question our own feeling, become less confident, and may be crazy. Because we felt like what we see, people don't see it, as if we are a liar or just being hallucinated. Are we crazy? No one trusts us? No one understands us? How come our feeling is incorrect?

Please, don't do that. We just need your agreement for what we feel. If you also see what we see, trust me, we are very happy to have you. Because that's what we want. We want you to be with us when we are down. We don't need your judgement, we just need your presence, so we don't feel alone. Just do that, please, if you want to make us happy, get rid your own judgement, validate our feeling. 

One more thing, even it is better if you can say:

"If you want to cry, don't hold back. It's okay, just let it out. Either it is a small matter that makes you wanna cry, please don't hold back. Probably you are tired, or even you don't know why you want to cry. It's okay, it's a normal thing. Maybe, you are exhausted, exhausted with small things that happen today. If by crying will help you feel better, please cry. Because it means that you have tried to endure, tried to succeed, tried with all your heart. However, indeed, not all the things goes as what we expect. It's okay to feel disappointed, because unexpected thing may occur any time and you must be ready for that. Soon or later, the situation for sure will get better. Please don't worry, because you are strong and will smile again :)" -quoted from @yonmarhanggara 

We understand that not all the people know how to give empathy to the people with depression. We also noted that one and forgave them. Therefore, I wrote this, to enlighten you who might not know how to handle the people with depression, so you will not hurt your friend, family, or the people you know with depression, won't you? I truly understand that you never want to hurt them, instead you have a kind heart to help them escape from the inconvenient feeling. Now, you know how to, so don't get it wrong as how I told you above.

Really appreciate your reading toward my post, and please spread my message to the kind people who might not now how to react to the people with depression. Just don't leave us, be with us, validate our feeling, and please don't judge. 

Really thank you for visiting my blog! Have a nice day!