3 Ways Depression Affects Your Relationships

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.

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.

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.

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.

Explore Depression Treatment with Greenbrook 

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.