- Don’t ask your friend to make decisions. Indecision is a common side effect of depression. She’ll never know if she wants to drive herself to meet you at the bar of if she wants you to pick her up on the way there. She can’t decide between having an easy escape plan if she drives her own car or having a designated driver so she can drink until she blacks out and makes her usual poor decisions. You need to take one for the team and make decisions like these for her.
- Don’t ask what medications she’s taking. Not because it’s uncouth or embarrassing, but because it’s likely she doesn’t remember any of them. There was that time in high school she was on Paxil but it made her suicidal. A decade later she tried Lexapro until it made her suicidal. Then the next few months were a blur—cocktail after cocktail of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. She can’t even name all her medications for her doctor.
- Don’t pretend your friend isn’t gaining weight. This does not mean you should comment on it. It’s possible she spends so much time disassociating all day, she hasn’t realized she’s gained 50 pounds. You should be able to recognize that while you both used to wear a men’s small, you can no longer exchange clothes. Is she cold? Don’t offer her your sweatshirt because the odds of it making it past her shoulders aren’t in her favor.
- Don’t tell her to adopt a dog as a way to soothe the depression. Even if it’s untrue, she does not think she is capable or responsible enough to care for a dog. She lives on the second floor—there is no doggy door. It is unreasonable to assume she can emerge from under the duvet and get out of bed (every few hours!) to let the dog outside. She’s not so hopeless that she’d inadvertently kill the dog. But she would make it depressed. Your friend’s health insurance doesn’t cover anti-anxiety medication for her new border collie.
- Don’t show up unannounced. It’s likely that your friend does not have time to cover the stench of fermenting fruit, untouched since the last time she went grocery shopping three weeks ago. She does not have time to vacuum the Cheez-Its stomped into dust and buried deep in the carpet. She does not have time to gather up the pile of empty chip bags on the floor next to the couch, the half-drank bottles of water in between the couch cushions, or the clothes thrown all over the bedroom and into the hall because she couldn’t find her favorite pair of sweatpants. She does not have time to keep up appearances. One more thing, if you must show up unannounced, don’t knock loudly. Chances are your friend is taking her daily 3-hour depression nap.
sad binch 