About a year and a half later, I was in a serious depressive state and this person said to me, "You told me once that you always feel depressed after a performance ends. So just get over it."
And that actually made things worse.
See, she clearly knew that circumstances were right for me to be struggling, but instead of using that information to come alongside me and comfort me and be there for me and encourage me, she weaponised it -- she used it to trivialise the pain I was in.
This incident, in this depressive state, was an extremely large factor in my suicide attempt not long afterward. She knew I was struggling, but she didn't try to help. She knew that conditions were right for something to happen but she did nothing to even try to help cushion the blow.
Don't do this.
In the same way you encourage your loved ones to watch a good film or go for coffee if they've had a stressful day or take a nap if they were up late the night before or bring/make them food if they've not stopped to eat in a while, take note of factors that may trigger or worsen your loved one's depression and take steps to combat it/soften the blow, ESPECIALLY if they have deliberately told you what those factors are, and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if the factor is something predictable (for example, the end of a performance run). We do what we can, but sometimes we're not strong enough, or sometimes we just don't know how.
In the same way you encourage your loved ones to watch a good film or go for coffee if they've had a stressful day or take a nap if they were up late the night before or bring/make them food if they've not stopped to eat in a while, take note of factors that may trigger or worsen your loved one's depression and take steps to combat it/soften the blow, ESPECIALLY if they have deliberately told you what those factors are, and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if the factor is something predictable (for example, the end of a performance run). We do what we can, but sometimes we're not strong enough, or sometimes we just don't know how.
In my case, a good way for someone to help combat my depression is to just spend time with me. We don't have to do anything expensive or crazy. We don't even have to talk (just please note that if you're on your phone it very clearly sends the message that you'd rather be talking to someone else right now and I'm not worth your time and attention -- which actually worsens my depression even more than if you weren't even there to begin with). Just sit with me or walk with me. If I want to talk, let me talk. But please do not say that you did not know. Don't pretend that knowing it's coming makes the pain any easier to handle. News flash: it doesn't. If anything it makes it worse BECAUSE you know it's coming and you spend two weeks dreading it before it even arrives.
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