If you’re reading this you probably have a friend, family member, or significant other who claims they have depression. Well, I know what you’re thinking: wow, it’s becoming really inconvenient to care about this person; you planned a big night out with all your friends but one of them just wants to stay in, lay in bed, and can’t get up the motivation to even have a shower or bath; or you have a parent or sibling who you caught with self-inflicted scars on their body; or you have a significant other who feels like you are too good for them, who will either eat too much or nothing at all. Isn’t that all just so tiring for you? It must be! Well here are some magical phrases that you can use next time your faced with your loved one’s self-hatred, misanthropy, lack of motivation, and lethargy.

“You should get out and exercise!”

Yes, these magic words will definitely get your loved one out of bed, into the shower, and out to the gym. Nothing makes a person with depression feel better than being faced with a task like that! I’m sure they’ll crawl right out of their bedroom/cave where everything is warm and dark and shut away from the world and go right out into the sun for a nice jog!

“You should eat better” OR “I think you would feel better if you lost/gained a little weight.”

Nothing works as great as reminding your depressed loved one that they have so much control over their own health. Responsibilities and self-policing are the gate way to self-love. Depressed people secretly love themselves and giving into the pleasures of terrible food to sate any hatred they have for themselves or the world is only a phase or a call out for you to say these exact words to them! This could go with the exercise idea too! It’s super easy to give up on comfort food and even easier to force yourself to eat when the very idea makes you nauseated! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day even if your loved one wakes up at noon.

Speaking of sleep…

“You should get better sleep.”

You see, the half-a-day-sleeping or the staying-awake-for-two-days habits aren’t results of depression; they are the cause of depression! There is no messy gray area where the insomnia and the depression fuel each other. All you have to do is encourage your loved one to go to bed at a scheduled hour and wake up at a scheduled hour an appropriate amount of time later. Going to bed and waking up is just that easy; it’s so easy for a depressed person to turn off all their thoughts at night and then not feel glued to their bed and snooze button in the morning.

“There are people out there who have it way worse than you.”

Let’s say your loved one is actually willing to talk about their feelings of hopelessness. What do you do? You pull out this little phrase to help them gain some perspective! I’m sure it won’t make them feel worse for focusing on themselves and not the people who are actually suffering out there! I’m also sure that it won’t make them feel even more hopeless. Here is what it’s doing: it’s telling them that you know more about their depression than they do and, trust me, that’s the right way to go about it! It’ll motivate them to love themselves when they discover that there are people out their they can’t help, that there are people who have it way worse than them so they have nothing to complain about, and that you are truly the epitome of sympathy and empathy and can really understand what they are going through!

If not of these phrases applies to the scenarios you face with your loved one then consider some of the following:

“you’re just a little sad, not depressed”

“it’s all in your head”

“You don’t have any reasons to be depressed”

“Just think happy thoughts all the time”