My Depressed Friend

United States
September 17, 2008 2:53am CST
I have a friend who is depressed. She told my the other day that she is going to quit leading our local girl scout troop. This surprises me because even during her hospital stay, she expressed strongly that she wanted to keep acting in that capacity and we; her family, the other co-leaders and myself, did whatever we could to help her with that. She cut down drastically on her other outside activities and is now shutting out her family. Her husband seems like a loving and suportive person, he works and helps with cooking and housework. She homeschools and is behind with it, which worries me. Anyway, I cannot understand what has triggered her episode. It seemed like things were going great during the summer until she started cancelling meetings and not meeting her committments. She used to take great pride in her house and garden, but I can see a marked difference in these as she has let things slide. She is now on medication, but it seems like she is getting worse. I don't know how to help her.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@joy4you (641)
• India
17 Sep 08
I think someone she confides in is someone who is close to her needs to talk to her to try and find out what is causing her depression, like maybe her husband. That may be the only way to get to the root cause of her depression. I wish her all the best.
@chabawel (329)
• Philippines
17 Sep 08
Your friend might be undergoing a lot of stress right now and she doesn't know how to handle them. Especially the thought she once in control, now, she realized she can't do the same things before she got hospitalized. The last thing she needs right now is pity. She probably need a way to bring her old self back again and help her accept her situation right now.
@rsa101 (37933)
• Philippines
17 Sep 08
Well I think she has gone through depression which may be caused by some hormonal changes in the body. In her case it maybe worse since she has taken medications already. I think she needs to recoup back the life she had before and it needs guidance from their parents.
@klaudine (3650)
• Indonesia
17 Sep 08
Sometimes we only see what they want us to see. We think that her changing is happened overnight, but maybe she has been depressed since weeks or months or maybe years. Nobody knows. If she is under medication that would help a little, but if you want to help, you need to know the real problem of her. Without you knowing the real problem, the root of her depression, you would never be able to help her because the moral support would only encourage her without helping her solve the real problem. I am pretty sure something big has happened. Probably the family problems that she cannot open up to the other people. Maybe you have to make different approach to see the problem so you can help her solve this and get her out of her depression. Good luck maccer50