Ways to Support Your Depressed Partner

Ways to Support Your Depressed Partner
The ability to notice signs of depression in a partner comes easy to some people. But after seeing those signs of depression, how do you support your depressed partner?

One way to start depression support is to learn about depression. 

You will need to consume books, Internet articles, and lectures about depression to learn about the causes, effects, and possible treatments, enabling you to help your partner correctly.

Similarly, you can support your depressed partner by engaging in self-care. 

This involves creating time to get your happiness outside your marriage through friendships, solo dates, or hobbies.

Engaging in self-care will allow you to fill up your well of joy before coming home to share with your partner.

Supporting your partner with depression can help the marriage become stronger because it indicates that you value the marriage and are committed to their good living. 

When they recover fully from depression, they will remember all you did and love you more.

You can consider these ways to support your depressed partner:

Depression Therapists in Colorado

Katherine Miller, LPCC

Katherine Miller, LPCC

Colorado
(720) 449-4121
Brooke Moraski, LPCC, NCC

Brooke Moraski, LPCC, NCC

Colorado
(720) 449-4121
Kristen Yamaoka-Los, LPC

Kristen Yamaoka-Los, LPC

Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 481-3518
Katherine Fijman, LPCC, LACC

Katherine Fijman, LPCC, LACC

Aurora, Colorado
(720) 449-4121
Megan Brausam, LPC

Megan Brausam, LPC

Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 481-3518
Jenifer Seas, LCSW

Jenifer Seas, LCSW

Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 452-4374
Grace Combs, LSW

Grace Combs, LSW

Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 602-1342
Mikayla Braukhoff, LPCC

Mikayla Braukhoff, LPCC

Aurora, Colorado
(720) 449-4121
Tracey Lundy, LCSW

Tracey Lundy, LCSW

Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 452-4374
Emily Murphy, LPC

Emily Murphy, LPC

Colorado
(719) 345-2424

Learn About Depression 

When you get involved in knowledge-based activities about depression, they can show you how to support your depressed partner as you will understand the condition better and learn ways to help them in the healing process.

In your learning, you will realize that your partner's depression may not have a negative reason. 

Usually, depression results from adverse events, but if you have been trying to pinpoint the negative trigger to no avail, this information can help you realize that your partner's depression doesn't have a negative reason.

Similarly, you will learn that depression is more profound than sadness, and it's more of an illness. 

The condition disrupts certain neurotransmitters in the brain, resulting in an imbalanced mental and physical state. 

People with depression usually report physical and mental weakness and fatigue.

As a silver lining, you will learn that depression is treatable since it can be regarded as an illness.

The treatment methods for depression include medications, therapy, and lifestyle changes, which you can introduce to your partner to help them recover fast.

Take Care of Yourself 

Generally, we need to refill and recharge our social batteries after making people happy and before making more people happy. 

This situation also exists if your partner is depressed, as you will need to have moments for self-care to be at your best for them.

Therefore, when planning how to support your depressed partner every day, think of how to support your mental health so it won't degrade.

You can incorporate a 45-minute personal time to catch up with activities that give you joy.

In your specified time, you can perform solo activities such as following a TV show, taking an evening walk, going to the spa, taking a long drive to think only positive thoughts, singing and dancing to music, filling in your diary, or call family members.

You may also engage in activities with friends to enjoy the ambiance from their happy thoughts and have someone to talk to. 

You can go to the cinema with your friend, go shopping, run with them, exercise with them, watch live performances, or go on a short hike.

Involve a Professional Counselor 

As heroic as you may be feeling, depression is not a light condition that emotional home remedies can solely tackle. 

To support your depressed partner, you may need to involve a professional counselor to allow your partner to benefit from their expert advice and methods.

When your partner sees a counselor, the session will involve helping your partner realize the actual events that caused their depression. 

Pinpointing these reasons can help develop measures that will prevent their occurrence and the subsequent manifestation of depression.

Also, the counselor will help your plan set realistic goals in the path to recovery using their expert knowledge and proven methods. It's essential to let a counselor set the goals because they need to be measurable and achievable for easy achievement.

The professional counselor will also help your depressed partner develop the necessary skills to combat their episodes of depression and prevent such episodes. 

Don't Blame Your Partner 

If it ever becomes tiring for you to cope with your partner's mood swings, lethargy, and sadness, take a deep breath and calm down. To support your depressed partner, you need to encourage them and help them rather than blame them.

Avoid telling them to try harder to get out of the depression. It's not something they can easily turn off, and it's not like they also enjoy the negativity around it. 

Try to help in your ways and be patient with the methods to help improve their condition.

Similarly, you should not be dismissive of their condition because this will cause them more sadness. 

If you disregard the depression, they may feel unloved and alone in the world since you are their partner and you are supposed to be their emotional companion.

Ensure that you also don't resort to shaming them. 

A depressed person is constantly embarrassed by their situation, and you shaming your depressed partner will only cause them to feel more significant embarrassment and shy away from you.

Work With Them 

Going through thick and thin in your relationship involves you working together to create a stronger marriage. 

When you support your depressed partner by working with them to heal the condition, it will strengthen your emotional bond and create a more blissful marriage.

Working with them may mean talking to them about how they feel and asking them to help you understand it so you can somewhat realize the depth of the condition.

Furthermore, you can work with them by being involved in every activity that can help them heal and get back to their regular functioning schedules.

You can also attend their counseling sessions with them, enabling you to partake and help them answer some questions when they are too mentally fatigued to continue. 

Your presence in the sessions can also give them a source of familiarity and motivation to carry on with the counselor.

Conclusion

For better, for worse with your partner means you are with them through every event of joy or incident of sadness, celebrating or supporting them.

Thus, you can support your depressed partner by immersing yourself in learning about depression, engaging in self-care to get the mental fortitude to care for them, involving a professional counselor, making sure not to blame them, and working with them to help them heal.

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September 27th, 2023

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