I suffer from chronic depression. It runs in my family. My first symptoms became really apparent around when I was your girlfriend's age, but looking back I think I can detect significant signs throughout my childhood and definitely some pretty serious ones that I always told myself were just normal experiences. That said, I have had two near-breakdowns as an adult that really put my condition into perspective and made me really look to address my symptoms on a daily basis. Chronic depression never goes away, it just ebbs and flows.
My family, even though depression and suicide were rampant on both sides, were never really supportive.
Depression is really a many-headed beast and treating it seems to be slightly different for everyone.
I found that creating my own supportive network of friends and relationships to be key. People who understand when you are spiralling.
Medication only worked for me during my real lows and I would caution everyone who seeks it as a kind of magic bullet.
Therapy works, but only until I found the right therapist.depression is fed by by key events in a person's life and the emotions surrounding those events are complex and must be openly and frankly dealt with. You have to do this, if only not to be so damn hard on yourself for being depressed.
There are triage type things you can do too: exercise (really intense, hard exercise) no social media, limiting alcohol are all good things.
For you, I think figuring out the difference between empathy and sympathy will go a long way. Empathy is the way to go.
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