[kidA]

Hello.
My friend, who is very bright, struggles with extremely severe depression. I've been helping her, or trying to, at least, for a long time, now. I don't know whether I'm just not doing enough or if she is sick of me or something, but she has fallen back on excuses like, "you just don't get it" whenever I ask her why she doesn't take her medicine, or why she refuses to change things that she knows are just hurting her. I know she isn't dumb, and so it makes me wonder whether or not she really does want to improve. I don't know, I don't know. Am I just insensitive? It almost seems to me that she wants attention, and that some (not all) of her negative feelings are teenage angst that she's taking too seriously, but that doesn't seem to go over well... Which I understand completely. I don't know, I don't know. Does anyone have any insight into this problem? I'm sorry if I sound like a blithering idiot to everyone. I'm sorry I don't seem to be the person she needs.

[SilverNeurotic]

Unless you've actually suffered from depression as your friend has, it's very hard to actually grasp the sheer willpower needed to do a lot of the things you are expecting your friend to do. I know that you mean well, and you want your friend to get better but sometimes all you can do is be supportive and be there for your friend but let her find her own way.

[kidA]

I.. I don't know, though. She'll come to me for help, but the second I say something she doesn't want to hear, she'll say "I don't need this", and go about doing whatever. Which I find funny, she's always saying how low her self-esteem is, or how dumb she is, when she isn't, but the second anyone contradicts what she says, she is extremely quick to defend herself in an almost arrogant way. The reality of the thing is that I have been there, but even now as I look back on things, I realized how wrong I was. I don't know. She doesn't want to hear it.

[tinyrabbit]

It's lovely that you want to help your friend, but she really needs to help herself - otherwise she'll just end up becoming dependent on you. Sometimes it's too hard to do this stuff. Sometimes people get very attached to their conditions - I don't mean anyone wants to be depressed, just that it can be a kind of self-reinforcing thing.

Nobody wants to be depressed. People who want attention usually need it. Teenage angst is a made-up phrase designed to trivialise genuine feelings of anguish. And all you can really do is just be there for your friend - if she doesn't want to help herself, you can't make her.