If you know someone who is depressed, it affects you too. The first and most important thing you can do to help a friend or relative who has depression is to help him or her get an appropriate diagnosis and treatment. You may need to make an appointment on behalf of your friend or relative and go with him or her to see the doctor. Encourage him or her to stay in treatment, or to seek different treatment if no improvement occurs after six to eight weeks.

These tips are important.
Offer emotional support, understanding, patience and encouragement.
Never ignore comments about suicide, and report them to your friend's or relatives therapist or doctor right away.
Remind your friend or relative that with time and treatment, the depression will lift.

If you never suffered from depression then you really do not know how dangerous it
can be. I recall when I first fell into a deep depression. The hardest part was friends and family telling me "everyone gets depressed, snap out of it". If they only knew at that time how bad it was and that their statements along those lines almost pushed me to my grave. I later (after treatment) see that this is how most people that never suffered from a deep depression feel about it, so it is a mind set that has to be broken. I hope people will accept that some people have a chemical imbalance that needs medication to help correct. These people cannot just "snap out of it" on their own.

Just a note here hoping people looking up information for a loved one will read.

On a side note, I will stay focused on the site topics, took some heat for that election post.

Also, I am working on a long blog, or maybe I'll add it as an article on my depression bio, if anyone cares :)...

TTYL