My friend, Ava, is one of my best friends. I know she’s been having depression issues before. Last week, she told me that her depression came back extremely hard about two months ago, and I never knew. She’s been self harming, doing a lot of cutting. She’s been telling me all about it and trusting me to help her, and I love helping her, but I have no clue how to help. She says that she’s been trying to stop self harming for me, and for that I am grateful, but I don’t really know how to help her get rid of her depression. She’s not just relying on me for help, but she’s been going to her other friends as well who have more experience with depression than I do (she hasn’t stopped coming to me, though). I’ve never really been depressed like her before, so I don’t really know what it’s like. I think that she’s finding a way out of cutting by distracting herself, but if she stops self harming herself, which I hope, how do I get her out of her depression? (I believe her parents know about her depression as she has been formally diagnosed with it before.) She and I have tried to cheer her up by doing the things we love (basically talking about bands and stuff, haha), and I can tell that makes a difference, but I want her to be fully happy.
I really want Ava to be happy again…