What To Do When The Woman You Love Has High Functioning Depression
She needs to know that you're there for her. Always.
getty When your girlfriend has a mental illness, it can be really hard for you to know how to interact with her. She doesn’t want to seem uninterested, but sometimes, she just can’t help it.
As the girl with high-functioning depression, it can be hard to maintain an interest level in all things. She needs to be reminded that it’s okay if she can’t give 110 percent all the time.
It can be hard to be in love when you’re depressed, even with the person who you love more than anything.
Actually, everything is harder when you’re depressed. Just because she can get up, go to school/work, get homework done, and make appearances at social events, it doesn’t mean that she isn’t working hard emotionally to make it through the day.
When you have high-functioning depression, everything is a struggle.
Getting up to make it to work on time? She might hit the snooze button a few extra times, because she’s just that exhausted even if she got ten hours of sleep the night before.
She needs to be checked in on and told that she isn’t a burden. When you have an invisible illness like high-functioning depression, self-doubt can creep in at the worst of the times.
If she needs help, she’s going to be less likely to ask. That’s why so many people don’t know that people have high-functioning depression.
And figuring out how to deal with this depression isn't always so simple. That's why even little things, like asking how she is, can help. That's where you come in.
Asking if she’s doing okay, how she’s managing her stress level, and if she needs anything are easy ways to make sure she knows that you love her and she isn’t a burden.
Encourage her to get help if she needs it. Seeing a counselor or taking medication can seem like admitting that she can’t handle her life the way that it is, but she needs to know that it’s okay to ask for help.
RELATED: How To Tell Which Type Of Depression You're Experiencing — And Exactly What To Do About It
Becca Leigh is a writer who blogs about relationships. Follow her on Facebook.