How to communicate with friends who are suffering from depression

Depression is the most common mental illness today. Its main clinical feature is continuous and long-term low mood. It is the most important type of mental illness among modern people.

Clinically, the patient is depressed and unhappy, and has a long-term low mood, from being unhappy at the beginning to being heartbroken at the end, feeling inferior, miserable, pessimistic, and disgusted with the world. He feels that every day of his life is a desperate torture to himself, and he is negative and escapist, and finally even has suicidal tendencies and behaviors. The patient suffers from somatization symptoms. He feels chest tightness and shortness of breath.

Depression patients just want to lie in bed every day and don't want to move. They have obvious anxiety. More serious cases will have hallucinations, delusions, thinking (speech) disorders and other mental symptoms. Each episode of depression lasts for at least 2 weeks, a year, or even several years, and most cases tend to relapse. Over the past 30 years, the reported incidence of depression has been on the rise. my country's medical prevention and treatment of depression is still in a situation of low recognition rate, and only some patients have received relevant drug treatment; and the incidence of depression (and suicide incidents) has begun to show a trend of younger age (university, and even primary and secondary school students). The popularization, prevention, and treatment of depression need to be paid attention to, and depression prevention and treatment has been included in the national mental health work priorities.

So how do we communicate with people who suffer from depression?

Image by: Li Fulin

Reviewer: Guo Zhihua (Deputy Chief Physician of Psychiatry Department, Beijing Boai Hospital, China Rehabilitation Research Center)

Some texts and pictures are from the Internet. Please contact us to delete if there is any infringement.