There is an author I'm fond of named Parker J Palmer. In one of his books, Let Your Life Speak- Listening for the Voice of Vocation, he recounts his own struggles with major depression. He wrote that, at the time, the only person who could get through to him was a neighbor.

This neighbor would come over every day & would rub his feet. Palmer wrote that the neighbor had found the one place in Palmer's body where he could still experience feeling. Occasionally the neighbor would offer a comment such as: "It feels like you're getting stronger..." or "I can sense your struggle today." Otherwise the neighbor rarely spoke a word.

About this experience, Palmer wrote: "I could not always respond, but his words were deeply helpful: they reassured me that I could still be seen by someone-- life-giving knowledge in the midst of an experience that makes one feel annihilated and invisible. (Pgs. 63 & 64)