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3 Ways Depression Affects Your Relationships
2021-11-23T22:58:40Z
Medically reviewed on by
Regional Medical Director Greater St. Louis
You may feel isolated and alone when you have clinical depression, and depression also affects your relationships with family and friends. While the primary focus of your treatment is to improve your mental health, it’s also essential to understand your loved ones may experience their own issues as they try to support you. An understanding of how depression affects relationships can help everyone maintain healthy connections and navigate problems. Here are some of the ways depression may affect the people in your support network.
1. Depression Can Promote Negativity
People with depression may have a sad outlook on life. According to research, this can result in a tendency to express themselves negatively through their words or facial expressions. Also, depression can make people view casual social interactions as negative and attribute these difficulties to their personalities.
This leads to fewer close relationships, a lower level of empathy from others, and a higher incidence of poor social interactions. In response, someone with depression may isolate themselves to avoid rejection. Unfortunately, this can reinforce a negative perception from other people, which further decreases the chances of positive social relationships.
More specifically, research has consistently demonstrated a link between being depressed and experiencing rejection from other people in social settings. Interacting with someone who is depressed may cause otherwise healthy individuals to feel more depressed, hostile, rejecting and anxious. Negative feelings make it harder for the individual who is suffering from depression to display good-natured social behavior and this disrupts relationships.
2. Relationship Conflicts May Occur
Understanding how your depression affects others can strengthen your interpersonal relationships. Caregivers who feel overburdened, such as parents of depressed children, may engage in
expressed emotion. This can take the form of hostility, irritability or criticism.
Unsurprisingly, this may lead to arguments and a lack of trust that fractures relationships. Plus, the person who is depressed may see their symptoms increase. The intensified depression may make a person push others away, reinforcing the feelings of depression and deepening the rift in the relationship. If a caregiver can’t lower the level of their expressed emotion, the risk of relapse for the depression sufferer increases and the cycle of negativity continues unbroken. In such cases, psycho-education for family members or loved ones and family-focused therapy can help improve expressed emotion in personal relationships.
3. Depression Impacts Physical
and Mental Health in Others
The effects of depression on family members can take a toll on their health and well-being in the form of stress. Chronic stress often wears on loved ones or caregivers and may manifest in headaches, body aches and pains from muscle tension, acid reflux, heart disease, weakened immune system and other diseases. This stress may also trigger depressive symptoms in other people, especially those who are in a caregiving relationship to the person with depression. It’s helpful for family members or caregivers to join support groups where they can access resources, share their experiences, and learn from the experiences of others.
And everyone—people with depression and members of their support network—should keep up with daily self-care habits that can bolster mental and physical health. Try to eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep each night.
What You and Your Loved Ones Can Do
Treatment takes on new importance once you know how depression affects relationships. You and your loved ones will benefit when you seek proper care for your depression symptoms. It is paramount to seek out professional help. By meeting with a doctor, you can discuss your depression concerns and symptoms with a medical professional. Then, you and your doctor can develop a plan to make things better.
Greenbrook helps you alleviate depression symptoms, especially if you’ve already tried medications or talk therapy with inadequate results. We develop personalized treatment plans for each of our patients to safely and effectively manage their depression through TMS therapy or nasal esketamine.
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Depression’s effects are wide-ranging, so it’s important to seek out treatment. Find out if TMS therapy or nasal esketamine is right for you or a loved one. Schedule a free consultation with us today.
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Starting any medical treatment for the first time can leave you with questions, especially if you’re looking forward to the benefits it may bring. It’s no different when you’re preparing for your nasal esketamine treatment. Your previous mental health treatments may have consisted solely of taking antidepressants at home or visiting a therapist’s office for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), so nasal esketamine is probably a new treatment experience for you. If you're wondering what it's like to start nasal esketamine and get ready for your first session, keep reading. Getting Started with the Nasal Esketamine Treatment As with any new treatment, you’ll first talk to your primary care provider or psychiatrist about whether nasal esketamine is a good fit for you. Alternatively, you can schedule your esketamine nasal spray consultation with a treatment center (such as Greenbrook) that has certification by the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). At Greenbrook's REMS-certified nasal esketamine treatment centers, our Greenbrook-affiliated psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners will review your medical history and also conduct our own assessment to help determine whether nasal esketamine treatment is right for you. Certain conditions, including blood vessel disease and a history of psychosis, may make treatment a risk for you. Make sure you discuss all previous and present conditions with your doctor or nasal esketamine provider before beginning treatment. If the medication is deemed a good fit, you’ll receive your prescription from the Greenbrook-affiliated provider. Your Greenbrook Care Team will put together a personalized care plan for the weeks and months to follow. Keep in mind that you will need to take a standard (oral) antidepressant along with your nasal esketamine treatment. There are two important regulations to note when it comes to preparing for treatment: Each treatment is followed by a mandatory two-hour observation period. This means you will need to plan to stay at the center for at least two hours following your self-administration of the esketamine nasal spray. You cannot drive during the rest of the day after treatment and must arrange for transportation. These regulations are mandatory. It may be helpful to sit down and plan out several weeks’ worth of transportation once you know your treatment schedule. In addition, if you’re wondering what to bring for the treatment, we recommend entertainment such as an audiobook or playlist of favorite songs and a pair of headphones. You may want them during the two-hour observation period. What to Expect During Nasal Esketamine Treatment On the day of treatment, you’ll need to stop eating any food two hours before your appointment and stop drinking all fluids 30 minutes before you come in. 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Schedule A Free Consultation To get started with nasal esketamine, schedule your free consultation today.
Learn how long it takes for different depression treatments to work such as antidepressants, TMS therapy and nasal esketamine.
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