What are the responsibilities of a depressed person?

This is about either unipolar or bipolar depression.

This is both from the pov of the depressed person and from the pov of the person trying to support them (I've been in both places).

The question is:

How do I know the person with either unipolar or bipolar depression is doing their responsibilities in the situation like an alcoholist's responsibility is to get sober and go to AA meetings or whatever helps them to get sober. I can see that more clearly about an alcoholist's responsibilities, but what are the depressed person's responsibilities? So that I am not just spoiling or enabling them?

And the same for myself, how do I know I am doing all my responsibilities to get better if I am depressed, feeling chronically low or negative? How do I know I am not asking for too much from others trying to support me?

Thanks much for any answer.

You ask a very good and very important question. Sadly, I am still trying to figure all that out from problems in my own life. I hope others here can be helpful to you. Sorry I don't know how to be helpful in this. My heart goes out to you though!

Hi @Etcetera1 - I think that is a great question. It is not easy when moods keep changing. I think the following show that someone is committed to getting better. These are ones my partner has to face so I share them here.

1) Sign up for therapist (talk therapy) and psychiatrist (med treatment)
2) Attend the scheduled appointments with above
3) Ask the therapist for homework to work on during the week.
4) Take the meds regularly if prescribed by psychiatrist.
5) Do what you are able to do in terms of self care like sleeping enough but not too much, exercising, eating balanced, healthy meals, trying to socialize online or IRL, find things of interest like reading or hobbies and participate when able.

Those are some ideas. Not everyone does all of those all of the time but even adding one more of those to your lifestyle could help improve the situation @CANDC

Thanks much for the detailed answer. If someone's in a bad enough condition that they are not able to do much, like, not able to even go to bed in time because it requires more discipline and energy than what they have left, not able to read, or do any other hobbies because that also takes more mental or physical energy than what they have, what's their responsibility if anything?

posted by Etcetera1

Quote:

If someone's in a bad enough condition that they are not able to do much, like, not able to even go to bed in time because it requires more discipline and energy than what they have left, not able to read, or do any other hobbies because that also takes more mental or physical energy than what they have, what's their responsibility if anything?

I think doing one of the items on the list I mentioned.

Another thing to do is do one thing a day preferably in the AM or after one awakes or have breakfast. To me it may be necessary to insist on doing my one thing each day. Sometimes a shower or wash dishes or sweep the floor. It does not matter, by starting a routine that one can tell oneself must be done, a new habit starts. Eventually one can increase that. To me human life is too precious to waste so I try to find something worthwhile to do. I used to paint pictures or write poems or keep a journal. Everything I did brought me a step closer to functioning.

Yeah sometimes - often - i only do one thing a day. Its kinda naturally grown into two or three most days. But there was a pretty long string of doing no things a day that i am playing catch-up with now. But it feels like doing say three things is advancing me.

When I was working I had to do creative things when I was not working because those were part of who I am. They really helped me put up with the boredom of working. It was rough.

I just picked anything that would recharge my battery including getting adequate sleep and trying to eat a good diet.

Ah I think you ended up editing my post when adding your response for it.

Anyway, yeah, I see what you mean. How could I convince a depressed person in my life that they need to relax and allow me to invite them to do fun stuff. ?

If they are totally obsessed with security, financial security, and the like, obsessed with trying to get and to keep work but barely being able to do much in practice due to their depression (unipolar, though possibly bipolar II), being scattered all over the place with it and never relaxing and getting offended if being invited to have fun etc. Also yeah with sleep schedule being a mess too.

I also had this idea that they could do creative work because yes they are a creative person too. But that ended up going nowhere too. Maybe if it wasn't work at first....?

But yeah, how could I mention all this in an empathetic, understanding way?

I can relate to your friend. I too, struggled with low self esteem tied to my inability to make a decent income. I had awful managers who killed my self esteem and talked down to me.

And I worried about people calling me terrible names for enjoying myself while I haven't fixed my financial situation.

So when a friend invited me for a trip to relax, I couldn't relax. And I feel guilty for those times that I was not able to relax with a friend and now my friend is ill and I don't know if we would have a trip again.

You can allow the person know how you care about them and wish you could have some fun memories together. And you want them to be able to relax for a day.

And that it's okay to have one day a week for themselves to not worry. And psychologists actually prescribe it as part of self-care. And if they allow themselves to feel good, it can help improve their mental health.

My job situation improved that I was able to buy art supplies but I still feel guilty about how much it costed, etc.

It is a tricky thing because even when I tried to do some drawings and it doesn't turn out, I feel upset. But I shouldn't because being upset doesn't help. It makes things worse.

But in creativity, I should allow myself to make mistakes because it can produce nice results too.