How to Cope with Someone Else's Depression and Enjoy the Holidays

When a family member or a person intimately close suffers from depression, you do as well. Nothing feels right. You are always conscious of their troubles. Some people even go as far as to feel guilty about experiencing pleasure. This is a response brought on by a natural emotion called empathy.

What is empathy?

The Webster's New World Dictionary defines it as the ability to share in another's emotions, thoughts or feeling. We all have this gift. Caring about someone adds to our sense of empathy about him or her. This explains the feeling of guilt we get when we a person we want to our level of happiness with cannot. Some try to cut themselves off from "the problem." Denying emotion is not a good thing to do to the mind or your relationship. A core of all motivation teachings from James Allen, author of the book "As a Man Thinketh" in 1904 to the present day expert Anthony Robbins is "you are what you think." If you keep denying that you care, you will stop caring. The process of emotional indifference is similar to putting the edge of a piece of paper towel right up to the edge of a puddle of water. Slowly, the water saturates the paper towel making it all wet and bogging it down. Emotional indifference over time soaks up your emotions. Loss of emotion and empathy are the deathblow for any relationship.

You have to make decisions that allow both your feelings and let you experience full-fledged enjoyment without guilt. The power is yours. After all is not that, what the holidays are about, experiencing the receiving and giving.

How do you release yourself from the guilt?

You learn how to understand what depression is. Social stigmas portray people who suffer from depression as weak and fragile victims that in need of protection. In your relationship you most likely view yourself as caretaker-helper-protector and guardian. By applying this social dynamic within your relationship, you unknowingly release the other from full responsibility for their own emotions. This includes accountability for their own happiness. No one person can be held prisoner by the liability for someone else's happiness. A trap many in the depression involvement fall into on both sides. True happiness comes from within. Any opposing ideals are not based in selflessness, as some caretaker-helpers believe. It is a seed that helps the growth of selfishness in which the depressed one comes to depend on.

Depression is an illness or disease.

Depression needs to be dealt with a proper treatment and support. You cannot give proper support, if you allow yourself to assume the afflicted person's self-responsibilities. Consider that there are well documented cases of people, who suffer from depression that perform as high level executives with extreme success. Would you take cough medicine for a person that has a cold and expect them to get better? That would be absurd. A depressed person needs support. Support is the medicine of true emotion and feelings. \

How do you apply encouragement?

Addressing events and situations in the positive is a great support tool. Emphasize the joy of sharing what ever it may be with your partner or family member. Guide, suggest and invite, but do not push. Let the person know you want them to take part. If they do decide to join in, avoid expressing any regret about what you see as their level of enjoyment. Would you begin a weight workout program by trying to benchpress 500 hundred pounds? I do not think so. Accept and appreciate the other's being there as the beginning of a building, process. Remember you are giving support to the person not taking responsibility his or her happiness.

What about you?

This is an important question you should ask everyday. The trick is to be honest in your answer. Here is a checklist to help you:

•Are you feeling weighed down or do you have conflicting emotions? It is time to step back. Slow down, break away and take time for yourself then come back and to study situation. Avoid acting for the sake of reacting. Allow your point of view time to realign itself.

•Are you putting aside your own list of items and off course from your own personal direction? Write down you daily goals that directly concern only you. Reviewing them on paper will help you to see more clearly.

•Are you feeling limited or are you putting limits on yourself that do not exist? If you are, make a list of what these areas are. Next to the list put two columns. Label one "Doable" and the other "Undoable." Review the list first before making any final checkmarks. Put the list away for a while and comeback to it. Make the proper markings and again put away the list for at least an hour or two. After a good amount of time, review the list in earnest and re think your checkmarks.

•With all your information at hand, ask yourself, how can I make this work for us? The key word here is "us." Frustration usually sets in when you loose the focus on "us" and it becomes centered on me.

The trick to the whole relationship is the us and me connection. Each has to have its boundaries, yet be flexible about it. Do not expect perfection or a smooth ride. All relationships are the same in that nature. A relationship in wherein one of the members suffers from depression is tougher and more stressful. Nobody seems to want to admit it, but it is natural to feel guilt. One of my favorite editorial cartoons from many years ago was an uncaptioned drawing of a single woman reading a book titled, "Guilt without Sex." What it means is our ability to feel empathy offers the possibility of suffering guilt. When you sense this happening, run down the checklist and get back in touch with you. Do not let their depression steal from your enjoyment. Instead, take control and lead the way to a better holiday. Be your own inspiration and your partner, friend or family member will follow with your support.