[Response] What Is It Like to Have a Friend with Depression?

[Response] What Is It Like to Have a Friend with Depression?

One of the most detailed and profound descriptions of this question, in my view, is Haruki Murakami’s classic novel Norwegian Wood. Although Naoko’s condition is never explicitly identified in the book, it is, to a large extent, depression or something very close to it. Watanabe’s efforts are plain to see, yet in the end he is unable to bring Naoko back. That is, of course, a tremendous tragedy, and perhaps it is only through tragedy that we become aware of our own fragility and helplessness.

Mental conditions are not like physical ones: they cannot be examined through concrete means to determine an exact state. Even in the eyes of the most professional physicians, the mind often remains more like a fog than a tangible entity. In the final analysis, each person can only emerge from the abyss of the mind by themselves. Medication may help control the condition effectively, but it cannot eradicate it entirely, while love, effort, and struggle from the outside may be even less able to touch the root of the problem.

Unless we have truly put ourselves in their place, we cannot imagine the kind of pain a person is enduring, nor how insignificant our efforts may feel to them. Responsibly learning about the medical knowledge behind the symptoms, and helping the person pursue scientific, systematic treatment and recovery, is more effective than love, understanding, and concern in the ordinary sense—although those things are equally indispensable.