A Helpless Hand

Trying to comfort a friend with depression is a lesson in humility

When you have a friend who is depressed, you'll start with the facts. You'll want to know what's the matter. You'll want to talk her out of it. You'll want to explain away her sorrow so that she can get on with her life (refusing to acknowledge, even to yourself, that a significant part of the reason is so that you can get on with yours).

I have gotten all the facts. Fifteen or 16, times I've gotten all the facts and reminded her of them. The physical illness that set this mental misery in motion is under control. Her doctors have said, "Good news!" and, "We expect this is the end of it!" And, "Prognosis: excellent!"

"Your doctors are speaking with happy exclamation points!" I told her, pointing out that doctors don't do that unless they mean it.

She nodded. "I know all this," she said. "Why can't I hold on to the facts?"

"You're fine," I said.

She nodded in that way again, a whole new movement of her head. She can't eat. She can't sleep. She's lost weight. She needs a haircut. She needs a manicure. She needs to sleep for 30 days and 30 nights.

I don't recognize her. She is not the person I signed up to be friends with way back when.

When you have a friend who is depressed, you will wonder what you are made of, relationship-wise.

She lives an hour away. She comes to my house on weekends, an escape. I live on a farm. She isn't the farm type. She avoids my daughter's new baby ducks, and when we bottle-feed our sweet little lamb, she fakes a smile. I don't understand a person who isn't healed, instantly, by the sight of a baby lamb. "Or, look at the magnolia tree in bloom!" I said. "Look at this beautiful day!"

She looked at me with eyes full of tears.

When you have a friend who is depressed, one thing that never works is rubbing her nose in all the things she can't appreciate.

We have a little guest room upstairs. The walls are lemon yellow, and the ceiling is all bead-board painted glossy white, falling into steep slopes around the bed. I go there when I have the flu. It's a cocoon. It's a room that holds you in its embrace until you get good and claustrophobic. I usually come out screaming within 24 hours. She never comes out screaming. She tiptoes out reluctantly. We talk. Well, I talk. She looks at me and nods. Does she want me to keep talking like this?