Help Yourself and Others Battle Depression Better

Today, Maria Devon got out of bed. She pulled herself from the comforting warmth of her sheets, scooted to the edge of the mattress, and let her feet hit the floor with a thud. Then she stood and shuffled to the bathroom, intent on starting her day and facing her demons. She’d like to think this process will be easier tomorrow. But it may not be. It may never be.

Devon was an anxious child. Socially awkward. She lacked self-confidence. She didn’t want to go to school, and when she got mononucleosis at 14 years old, her emotional problems manifested as an eating disorder and body dysphoria. She was diagnosed with depression, making her one of 16 million sufferers in the United States, and her parents sent her to a mental institution for the summer. “I made the best of it. I made friends. I learned a lot about mental illness really early on,” says Devon (not her real name), now 42. “That was hard, and the stigma at school was weird. I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t date. I wasn’t ‘normal.’”

For the last 30 years, Devon has battled. She has scratched and punched and clawed her way, fighting tooth and nail to overcome—or at least outlast—depression. “The diagnosis changes constantly, and I’ve been on every medication at this point. It’s been 30 years of doing this, of feeling out of place,” she explains. “On a bad day, I can’t get out of bed at all. I can’t eat. I’m offering constant I’m sorries and feeling like I don’t belong. I basically developed two personalities. When I am working, I have my face I put on for work, and then I fall apart at home.”

Over the years, Devon was prescribed just about every cocktail of medications for depression, from Prozac to Zoloft, with limited improvement. She spent time in mental institutions. She underwent shock treatment—16 bilateral shocks—which she says radically changed her forever. And she’s been in therapy for decades. Each intervention had limited benefit to her mental state.

In 2013, after her older sister, whom she adored, died suddenly at 42, leaving her husband and two kids behind, her grief became a catalyst that further deepened her depression. “When my sister passed away, I started drinking heavily. I’ve been sober for over a year now, but I was in a really dark place,” Devon says. “Depression causes you to go places you wouldn’t normally go, even to contemplate killing yourself.”

And in September 2013, Devon tried to take her life. She was at her parent’s house, and a fight with a family member triggered unrelenting waves of suicidal thoughts. She felt like a burden to the people who loved her, and she was consumed by the suffocating feeling that she could never escape the depression that had plagued her for so long. “I felt like no one understood, and I couldn’t live like that anymore. I felt worthless. I felt trapped in a life and in my own mind with obsessive thoughts,” Devon recalls.

So she swallowed two jumbo-sized bottles of Tylenol and waited for the drugs to end her life. But either because she was disoriented or because some part of her did not want to die, Devon went downstairs and told her parents what she’d done, and they were able to take her to the hospital in time to save her life. “I sat in the hospital, possibly facing a liver transplant, and all I could think was What now?” Devon says.

Ali O’Grady is the founder of Thoughtful Human, a plantable card company designed to help people find honest ways to communicate in dynamic relationships and challenging circumstances.

What Can (and Can’t) We Do?

If you’re in the role of supporting a loved one who is suffering from depression, Fowler says she’s learned from helping her own daughter that less talking and more listening is the key. “You want to come from a place where you have no judgment and you just listen,” she says. “Be curious about what he or she is experiencing. People—especially adolescents—don’t ask for help when they feel judged.”

O’Grady echoes the sentiment and says consistent outreach and honest dialogue are sometimes enough to make a difference. “When you’re in crisis you can feel so isolated—you feel like you’re the only one in the world,” she says. “At the end of the day, nothing you’re going to say is going to “fix” things for someone in crisis, but you can keep showing up and asking the questions.”

As the friend or family member, it’s also crucial to remember that we can’t single-handedly save anyone from their pain or suffering, no matter how much we want to. “We can’t make pain disappear or give someone else the will to live. But there’s a place where you can help them get into a more serene place,” Myer says. “Try to take the tact that you’re going to make sure this person knows you love them, and be as available as possible, but still give your life the attention it needs and know that you can’t necessarily help this person from being in pain or attempting or completing suicide.”

Since every individual has difference neurochemistry and life circumstances, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for coping with depression. However, the industries and communities offering support for depression are growing. “Working with people who are profoundly depressed and suffering for many years, I’ve found there’s been a growing creative process to recognizing there are so many different approaches to well-being,” Myer explains. “People have gone beyond medications—there’s more attention to mindfulness, for example. There’s a range of different treatment approaches and life practices that can potentially be employed.”

Devon says at this point she’s very focused on dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy that helps a person identify their strengths and builds on them so that the person can feel better about him/herself and their life. But with everything she’s tried over the years, the best advice she can offer people battling to keep their heads above water is to exercise self-compassion. “Be kind to yourself. If you can get outside of yourself, that’s the key. Get outside of your own darkness,” she says. “Get a pink bike. Try thrifting. Take pleasure in simple joys. Take your medicine. Go to your doctor appointments. That’s your job. The way to transform is that you really have to push.

“You have to fight every single day.”