People who are unhappy often try to hide it from friends and family, and with something chronic like depression they get years of practice at deception.
Often even spouses are surprised when some sort of crisis arises and suddenly everyone scratches their heads and says, "I had no idea.."
People I have known who have been open about their depression and have sought help from friends and professional psychiatrists don't necessarily get cured. Some eventually committed suicide.
But I found out that nobody had been to see them for WEEKS before they did that. They had given up on professional help. That by itself would not have driven them to despair. But no one was seeking them out, no one was knocking on their door offering to take them out and talk.
Sure they had in some ways cut themselves off by dangerous behavior and not responding to calls. But many of us knew what might be happening.
Some people lived only a few blocks away and it would have been no trouble to knock on their door in passing. I like to say that in these cases I lived a good distance away, but I could have made the effort to go and see them, and should have.
We live in cities now where there really aren't communities like there used to be, where most relatives usually are far away and aren't close in the way families used to be. The patterns of divorce and the corporate employment structures which tend to move people away contribute to a climate where we really need to go out of our way for our friends more than we used to.
There aren't the organic support structures in place that used to sustain most people emotionally. Relationships tend to be casual, short term, and a matter of opportunity more than an affair of the heart. We can see by the questions asked here that most people don't have even minimal friendships often and have to ocme to an anonymous forum for advice that used to come from family and friends as a matter of course.
For example, people ask if someone is 'really interested' in them. If they were part of any sort of network of family or REAL friends, they would find out there. There's no way we out here in cyberspace can answer such a question. All I do is tell them to ask their friends, but I know they would already have done that if they had them!!
To compensate, we need to start making positive efforts to see people we suspect are alone, whether physically or emotionally.
And we need to rethink friendship. It is not just a gossip circle. That doesn't help people who are hurting. Real friendship involves a commitment that most of us think is in the category of marriage. It requires INITIATIVE and effort to maintain. It means seeking people out if they have mysteriously disappeared and looking them up, risking embarrassment by making unannounced visits.
Yes, you might cause people discomfort, but more likely you will be relieving deadly loneliness and giving them a chance to breathe emotionally. And you might even be saving their lives.
Often even spouses are surprised when some sort of crisis arises and suddenly everyone scratches their heads and says, "I had no idea.."
People I have known who have been open about their depression and have sought help from friends and professional psychiatrists don't necessarily get cured. Some eventually committed suicide.
But I found out that nobody had been to see them for WEEKS before they did that. They had given up on professional help. That by itself would not have driven them to despair. But no one was seeking them out, no one was knocking on their door offering to take them out and talk.
Sure they had in some ways cut themselves off by dangerous behavior and not responding to calls. But many of us knew what might be happening.
Some people lived only a few blocks away and it would have been no trouble to knock on their door in passing. I like to say that in these cases I lived a good distance away, but I could have made the effort to go and see them, and should have.
"Relationships tend to be casual, short term, and a matter of opportunity more than an affair of the heart. "
We live in cities now where there really aren't communities like there used to be, where most relatives usually are far away and aren't close in the way families used to be. The patterns of divorce and the corporate employment structures which tend to move people away contribute to a climate where we really need to go out of our way for our friends more than we used to.
There aren't the organic support structures in place that used to sustain most people emotionally. Relationships tend to be casual, short term, and a matter of opportunity more than an affair of the heart. We can see by the questions asked here that most people don't have even minimal friendships often and have to ocme to an anonymous forum for advice that used to come from family and friends as a matter of course.
For example, people ask if someone is 'really interested' in them. If they were part of any sort of network of family or REAL friends, they would find out there. There's no way we out here in cyberspace can answer such a question. All I do is tell them to ask their friends, but I know they would already have done that if they had them!!
To compensate, we need to start making positive efforts to see people we suspect are alone, whether physically or emotionally.
"Real friendship requires INITIATIVE and effort to maintain."
And we need to rethink friendship. It is not just a gossip circle. That doesn't help people who are hurting. Real friendship involves a commitment that most of us think is in the category of marriage. It requires INITIATIVE and effort to maintain. It means seeking people out if they have mysteriously disappeared and looking them up, risking embarrassment by making unannounced visits.
Yes, you might cause people discomfort, but more likely you will be relieving deadly loneliness and giving them a chance to breathe emotionally. And you might even be saving their lives.
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