Losing friends during depression

Hello everyone,

we all know depression takes a huge toll on the person suffering from it, but it does not only affect the person who has depression. Being friends with a depressed person can take a huge toll on the friendship as well.

Some friendships are strong enough to withstand the hardships that arise due to the depression. But we all know that there are friendships that do not last, especially when depression is involved.

Sometimes it’s because of miscommunication, the friend of the depressed person does not express, the magnitude of the burden they are carrying for various reasons. It could be that the depressed person talks too much to them about all their problems and they fail to express that they need a break. It could be that the person who is suffering from depression retreats and stops sharing how they are feeling and refuses to accept help. In that case the friend of the depressed person could find themselves in a situation where they can’t deal with watching their friend suffer anymore, without being able to help.

If you lose a friend during depression, it can destroy you, depending on the intensity of the friendship. If the friendship was not deep, it might not affect the depressed person quite as much, as losing a friend that is like family. If you lose someone that is like family to you, it already rips out a part of your heart, but with depression it is hard to explain the magnitude of the aftermath for that person. It is more than just ripping a part of your heart out, it rips the floor away from under your feet.

In fact I experienced losing quite a few of friends that were family to me. I burdend them too much and didn’t let them help me to a point where they felt like they were actually helping. I only let them listen and talk to me, but I didn’t really listen to their advice. They felt like talking to me was useless after a while, since it would not bring any change to my health anyways.
I was very egoistic when I was depressed, I only talked about myself and my problems. I stopped paying attention to the wellbeing of my friends, I didn’t ask them how they were doing anymore. I didn’t ask about problems I knew they were having, if they were resolved in the meanwhile or not.

I became a very bad friend when I was depressed and it is very hard to realise that on your own. Sadly by the time my friends told me, those were pretty much their last words directed at me. It was not salvagable anymore…

What to do when you lose important friends during depression?

The ideal thing to do would be to reflect, but we all know that we are not always capable of doing the ideal thing. In fact we often find ourselves feeling powerless and hopeless in situations like these, when we are immensly hurt.

What can help us the most in such situations is leaning on our other friends or family members, telling them about what we experienced and how the friendship ended. Sometimes talks like these also help us to reflect and find our errors. This also reminds us that eventhough we have lost someone important, we still have other people that care about us in our lives.

In some cases the friendship can be fixed later on and the friend who broke off the friendship just needed some space or some time to think about everything that happened. If it was a very deep friendship the chances of fixing it are very realistic.

We should never forget that in most cases when a friendship ends, it is because someone is hurt, feels treated unfairly, sometimes they feel neglected (if you give in to self isolation) or they can’t watch the suffering anymore.

If we pay attention to the reason the friendship ended and really care about getting our friend back, then we have to be dedicated because it takes alot of work to fix it again.
First we need to find out why it ended, then we need to accept our mistake and honestly apologise and really pay attention to our behavior in the future. But be aware that just because you put in a lot of effort, it does not mean that you can fix the friendship, if the other person doesn’t want to, then you can’t and shouldn’t pressure them to do so.

If you can no longer fix the friendship do not give in to despair, remember the good times, the good memories and experiences you have shared, maybe even lessons you have learned from that friend.
With that, you will always have your friend with you.

It is hard for us to realise that each person in our life only walks a certain distance in our path of life. Some stay for months, some contacts we have are for just a fleeting moment and some we have with us for a huge portion of our life, but there can always come a point in life, when the paths split. But our path always alignes with other people, once we realise that, we will be able to accept the changes in our lives better. Especially when it comes to losing contact to people we hold dear, something always stays with us.

So treasure your friendships and the people in your life, you never know when your paths will part!

Take care everyone and stay strong! Have a wonderful day.