Do we feel let down by our family?

In an ideal world your loved ones would gather around you and engulf you in a protective shield when suffering from depression, they would show you compassion and empathy. They would give you support and not give up on you when you slide backwards. They would hold you up on the road to recovery. But, unfortunately, we do not all live in an ideal world and sometimes the very people who are closest to us and to whom we mostly look for understanding and help are the ones who have the least patience and sometimes are even the most hostile towards us.

Managing depression on your own is not an easy task and the best support comes from other people. In particular, the support from the people who love us the most and vice versa, in other words our family, is invaluable. But it is not uncommon that family members, of whom we had the least doubt that they would stand by our side no matter what, turn their backs on us.

Depression often runs in families, sometimes from one generation to the next. Therefore some of the other family members may also suffer from depression, whether they acknowledge this or not. If you are seeking help and understanding from your parents, siblings or other close relatives, who have lived in the same environment, you are in a sense forcing them to confront their own demons when maybe they are not ready or not willing to do so.

If the depression is the result of family trauma your parents may feel guilty or that they are being accused and held responsible for not protecting you better. Though there is sometimes some merit in this assumption, if we make an effort to understand the wider circumstances at the time this can help our own healing. However, this can only be achieved when we are willing to listen to their side of the story as well and explain our feelings without any recriminations.

Siblings may feel that their own suffering is being ignored or they just want to forget and move on. Although suppressing a problem is never the best option we must respect their limits. The hurt felt on both sides by the apparent lack of compassion and understanding for the other’s situation can cause deep rifts in the family relationships and often all ties are severed, which exacerbates the depressive feelings for all concerned.

When we feel that the family has let us down, what can we do? Firstly, we must try to keep the line of communication open even if this is very hard. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, we sometimes need to give ourselves what we expected from others. We need to show ourselves compassion, empathy and patience. You may think that this would be obvious, but it is amazing how harshly we often treat ourselves. We need to be kind with ourselves and treat ourselves in a loving way. We can do this by accepting our imperfections and acknowledging that we are doing our best in the circumstances and with the tools we were given.

We can reward ourselves with gifts that make us happy and fill us with a sense of value. These can be tangible or intangible, a visit to a concert, a little luxury item or maybe allowing ourselves the time to read a good book. We can learn to live our life for ourselves, not always for other people. We are the most important person in our lives and when we start to appreciate ourselves the road to managing depression successfully will be much smoother and we will learn to enjoy the challenge of living.