If your loved one is struggling with depression, you may feel confused, frustrated and distraught yourself. Maybe you feel like you’re walking on eggshells because you’re afraid of upsetting them even more. Maybe you’re at such a loss that you’ve adopted the silent approach. Or maybe you keep giving your loved one advice, which they just aren’t taking.

Depression is an insidious, isolating disorder, which can sabotage relationships. And this can make not knowing how to help all the more confusing.

But your support is significant. And you can learn the various ways to best support your loved one. Below, Deborah Serani, PsyD, a psychologist who’s struggled with depression herself, shares nine valuable strategies.

Recently, when I was rereading Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, I was very struck by this observation about the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire:

The death of Guillaume Apollinaire at this time made a very serious difference to all his friends apart from their sorrow at his death. It was the moment just after the war when many things had changed and people naturally fell apart. Guillaume would have been a bond of union, he always had a quality of keeping people together, and now that he was gone everybody ceased to be friends.

The “quality of keeping people together” seems an important and rare attribute, and although it doesn’t come naturally to me, I’m trying to do a better job of it myself, and also to appreciate more the work of the Apollinaire-ish types whose efforts benefit me.

This quality has been on my mind since the sad occasion of a memorial service of a friend. I knew her in a work context, but at the service, I realized from the tributes of her college friends that, along with many other wonderful traits, she had the “quality of keeping people together” from that time.

My sister is this way, too, and from watching her in action, I know how much energy and time it takes to act like glue, to make the efforts that allow people to stay close.

I got to know Rachel Bertsche because I stumbled upon her blog, MWF Seeking BFF, which is all about the challenge of making friends as an adult. Making and keeping friends is is one of the most common, and also most significant, happiness challenges; friendship is very, very important to happiness, but as adults, we often don’t have the time and opportunities to build and strengthen those relationships.

Rachel’s book, MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, just hit the shelves.

In it, she talks about her adventures as she tried to meet and make friends after she moved to a new city. The relationship between friendship and happiness is a constant theme in the book, so I was eager to here more about her views on hapipness.

Well, Christmas has passed and we are here, happy after all the celebration, wondering how 2012 will treat us and thinking deep inside “damn, I don’t want to go back to work…” with a sad feeling added.

Most of us were lucky and celebrated with family, friends or strangers, but I’m sure some of you didn’t. Some of you probably celebrated Christmas alone, perhaps watching TV, or that new film “New Year,” who knows…

The thing is that some people — maybe not you, but some people — like to spend Christmas alone. People change, so maybe next year you’ll want to.

Every day, every year, we spend most of our time working, studying, and taking too little time to relax and do things we like without being concerned for the consequences (which in most cases are nonexistent). People are like water balloons. You can keep filling them with water until they explode, or fill them to the top, and keep it stored that way: The balloon loses force on the elastic plastic and sometimes it breaks. In other words, people can stand a lot of bad things, and store bad feelings until a certain point, where they might explode. Of course, some people can stand more than others.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Kate Evans.

Relating to other people can feel like constantly walking across a minefield. Sometimes, we’ll notice that other people just don’t seem to want to be around us, or we’ll notice that we can’t get rid of the negative people in our lives.

You may also notice that you feel uncomfortable around someone and you can’t quite put your finger on why. This article will help you figure out some of the things that you or others might be doing that cross boundaries and get in the way of closeness in relationships.

Let’s face it — most of us aren’t going to go very far in life without having to make a few apologies along the way. While some neanderthals may see an apology as a sign of weakness, most people recognize that saying, “I’m sorry” is a simple way to smooth over a difficult situation when you were in the wrong (and it even works when you may be right, but just want to move on in your relationship with the other person).

Apologies are one of those things we’re rarely formally taught how to do well. We often just muddle through them, mimicking the behaviors we’ve seen in others, and feeling like we just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. However, taking a few moments to really understand the value of a sincere apology can make your apologizing far more effective and more likely to accepted.

Here’s how to make an adept, sincere apology.

I have a lot of trouble remembering people’s names. (My husband, on other hand, is freakily good at remembering names and faces — a very handy virtue in a spouse.)

Also, I often have trouble remembering why someone looks familiar. Several years ago, while at crowded birthday party for a three-year-old, I was on the brink of going over to some little kid’s father to say, “I think we went to college together.” Turns out it was Dylan McDermott!

So I’ve developed some strategies for coping with the fact that I’m not able to pull up a person’s name right away. Of course, you can always just say politely, “I’m sorry, I don’t recall your name,” but if you’d rather try to disguise your forgetfulness, give these tips a try.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Kate Evans. 

When a friend is grieving the loss of a loved one, it’s easy to feel helpless. Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing by trying to cheer them up, pointing out the positives or letting them know that they should try to move on. Well-intentioned as we may be, those efforts tend to put pressure on them and leave them feeling invalidated.

So here are eight ways to help you support your friend in times of need.

Early last year, Phoebe Prince — a 15 year old who had recently moved to the U.S. from Ireland — committed suicide after relentless bullying by her schoolmates. Three 16-year-old girls — Ashley Longe, Flannery Mullins and Sharon Chanon Velazquez — were charged as youthful offenders with felonies including violation of civil rights, while three other students — Sean Mulveyhill, 17, Kayla Narey, 17, and Austin Renaud, 18 — were charged as adults in the incident. All the cases were settled with only probation for the accused, except for Renaud, whose charge of statutory rape was dropped entirely.

It’s important to remind people of the perpetrators of the bullying in this case, because that is one simple way to stop bullying. Show people that bullying has life-long consequences that will follow you forever, especially when such bullying leads a person to such hopelessness that they believe the only way out is to take their own lives.

In Massachusetts, this tragedy led to the passing of an anti-bullying law that supposedly made schools safer and put an end to the worst cases of bullying. (We don’t know how effective it is, as I couldn’t find any outcome data associated with the new law.)

Sadly, apparently the rest of the country hasn’t gotten the message yet. Word out of Ridge Farm, Illinois yesterday was that a 10-year-old Irish American girl named Ashlynn Conner apparently committed suicide last week due to relentless bullying from schoolmates.

Worse yet — Illinois has had an anti-bullying law on the books since 2001.

What if your friend, mother, sibling, or father-in-law is severely depressed but refuses to recognize it?

Most of us have been there at least once in our life: the awkward spot where you know a loved one has a mood disorder or drinking problem, but is too stubborn to admit it and to proud to get help. You might see the consequence his behavior is having on his children, his job, or his marriage, but he is blissfully blind or is in too much pain to see the truth.

What can you do, short of taking the person by his shoulders, shaking him, while screaming, “Wake the hell up and see what you are doing?!?”

It’s very complicated.

Because people are different.

Mood disorders vary.

And families are as unique as the illnesses themselves.

After doing a bit of research and consulting with a few mental health professionals, I have compiled this list of suggestions, to be read as merely that: suggestions.

One of my resolutions is to Enter into the interests of other people’s lives. When you think of people getting along harmoniously — whether in a family, or among friends, or in an office – people make an effort to enter into the interests of each other’s lives.My friend Michael Melcher (author of the terrific book The Creative Lawyer — which isn’t just for lawyers) pointed out to me an area where this is often an issue: with travels. It’s quite common for people to come back from big, life-changing trips, and feel let down because no one seems very interested in what they saw or thought or experienced.

Part of being a good friend, colleague, or family member is to show an interest, but this can be challenging. Often, people need help finding ways to talk about their travels in ways that are interesting to people who weren’t there.

I’m a huge fan of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. If you read these brilliant stories as a child, you should re-read them now; so much of the humor is pitched at grown-ups — marriage, friendship, theories of child-rearing.

After I’d re-read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle for the fiftieth time, I decided to try Betty MacDonald’s adult work. In her memoir, Onions in the Stew, she remarked, “Going down to the beach after a storm is the only time in my adult life when I experience that wonderful, joyous, childhood feeling of expectancy.”

This observation struck me, because I’ve noticed that I too rarely experience a “sense of expectancy.” The fact is, I don’t have a very joyful spirit. I rarely look forward even to fun events or activities.