Do WHAT?

 By a client not a professional.

The way people react to a diagnosis of mental illness is absurd.  What is even worse is the way they react to a person who is depressed.  Some avoid those with depression.  I'm not sure if they are afraid it is contagious, they lack the patience (although why it would take patience is beyond me), or they simply find someone who has some sort of disorder to be beneath notice. Yet, to even things out between those with depression and those without, those without it love to say stupid things.

When finding someone sad and dejected some revert to saying rather idiotically "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps."  Now, I'm sure a century or so ago people did have straps on their boots.  What purpose they served is beyond my ken, but someone decided they could be used to pull a body out of sadness.  This makes no sense as depression is not a physical state.  Thinking about this makes me laugh.  If someone told me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and I tried to comply I would certainly land on my derrière. The only mood elevator that would produce would be to humiliate me, and I think that would be a step down instead of up.

Someone else might tell one to buck up.  That is fairly simple and utterly without definition.  Buck up could mean going out, catching a male dear, and wandering around with it.  Why this would make someone feel less sad is hard to say.  Maybe the advice giver thinks the person will be totally amused by the animal and will laugh themselves free of dejection.  I don't believe that, but who am I to say.  Maybe our mysterious advisor thinks getting a lot of money will help.  It might.  I'm always happier to have a few bucks in my pocket than I am to be broke.  I don't see it as curing depression though.

How about the simple "feel better."  Don't people think that if you could simply make yourself feel better you would?  One cannot be ordered to feel better.  One could be so ordered and then act like they felt better, but that wouldn't be true.  Or perhaps it is meant in the context of literally reaching out and touching with more efficiency the things around you.  That could be dicey though.  If what is close by you is another person. . .Well enough said.

I think the worst one of all these things people say is "get over it."  If nothing else, it sounds a bit cruel. How would you propose one go about this.  Thinking out the mechanics of what you want someone to do before you say this just might bring this saying to a halt.  Can you imagine that cranky and cantankerous person who utters these words while trying to give step-by-step instructions to the depressed?  I seriously doubt that would ever happen. If it does, somebody call me I'd like to see it.

Depression does not have a cure that can be uttered in a few words.  It is a complicated state that is informed by genetics as well as by the environment.  Take time to say a few kind words, and not make out like this would be easy.