The Advice Column I

Fifty

Advice Request
This person wants to help their friend who is going through depression and anxiety.

Answered Submission
Thank you for writing to us. I would like to relieve you by telling you that, no, you are not overreacting. This isn't a simple situation, and you are right in thinking that your friend needs immediate help.

Anxiety and depression are very real and very serious mental health problems. It is a shame that these diseases lack the kind of awareness they need because both can lead people into harming themselves or others around them—physically or emotionally. Having a friend or family member who suffers with anxiety and depression can be very difficult, and some days their inability to understand that they need help may frustrate us so much that we could decide to quit. Do not do that. Do not stop helping them. The beauty of a relationship does not lie in having happy moments together but in being able to provide solace to one another when no one else can.

Now to the solution: you should talk to your friend again. Ask her to seek medical/professional help, try to explain to her that her mental health is now physically affecting her and you are worried for her, and tell her that you will inform her sister if she doesn't go for a checkup. Forcing your friend may seem wrong, but you need to remember you are doing this for her. Talk to her kindly, and don't be offensive. You have to be careful around her because people with depression take sympathy as pity. You have to convince her to seek help, and she needs constant reassurance that you are on her side. If she refuses and her condition gets worse, contact her sister immediately. Her family should know about her anxiety and depression. They are the ones she spends the most time around—the ones she lives with. If they know about it, they may prove helpful in her recovery; love and support can do great things for the depressed.

Your friend may be mad at you, but in the end, she will understand why you did what you did. True friendships aren't broken so easily. Love has to be tested again and again to prove its worth. She is in a bad state right now—she will and needs to get mad at someone. If she chooses that person to be you, don't take it personally, and forgive her for it. You seem to really care about her.

We hope she recovers and smiles back at life soon.

Love,

The Advice Column Team