| Overprotection | Monitoring“Caution—being mindful of how they’re doing, calling them in the morning, asking how they’re doing, if they’re going to get up, what they’re going to do. Trying to always stay up to date on their daily activities. Because with this depression, you can’t… it’s not that you want to kill yourself, but you do things without thinking, and any accident could kill you. But it’s because you don’t feel like taking care of yourself. It’s not like you go there on purpose to do something.” (Man, with a history of depression, high socioeconomic status).“It would be a state of alertness, trying to figure out how to help, but in the sense of making them realize they have to do something, seek professional help… It would be more like guidance, so to speak.” (Man, with a history of depression, medium socioeconomic status).Pressure and persistence“It was like others were demanding that—well, at that time, my family was already demanding that I feel better—and there was also that belief we talked about at the beginning, like, ‘Oh, come on, there are people who are having a really hard time and who have illnesses, and you don’t have any illness,’ and that I just had to snap out of it.” (Woman, with a history of depression, low socioeconomic status).Infantilization“I think there’s a lot of paternalism and a lot of… Or an attitude like, ‘It’ll pass,’ treating you more like a child.” (Woman, no history of depression, middle socioeconomic status).“They’d say to me, ‘How’s your little head?’… like in the way they treated me, in asking, ‘How have you been?’” (Man, with a history of depression, high socioeconomic status). |
| Social distancing | “Actually, I think depression is scary. Plus, nobody wants to hang out with someone who has depression. Nobody talks to you when you’re depressed. I mean, that creates a kind of isolation—it’s like people don’t know how to talk to someone who’s depressed, and they don’t want to get depressed themselves by being around someone who is. And it’s brutal.” (Woman, with a history of depression, high socioeconomic status).“And of course, what happens? Suddenly, people don’t feel as close or as connected to others, and they just pull away because of that. Because it’s there—they’re also trying to protect themselves. Because it’s complex. It’s complex, and interacting with and being around someone who’s going through a depressive episode is super complex.” (Man, with a history of depression, upper-middle socioeconomic status).“When it comes to friendships—which I’ve also experienced—you tend to put a little more distance between you. At first, you’re more—more involved—calling, asking how they’re doing, trying to get together, going to visit. But over time, you still end up drifting away because you don’t want to be involved in situations like that; because, as I was saying, it drains your energy.” (Woman, with a history of depression, high socioeconomic status). |
| Invalidation and judgment | “‘Oh, but how can you drown in a glass of water?’ ‘What’s happening to you is nonsense.’ I mean, you have to get up, move forward, and just keep going as you have to—as if it were a race, like it’s something that… has a beginning and an end, and we’re all moving forward. So if you just stand still, you’re failing, right? You can’t just stand still.” (Woman, with a history of depression, high socioeconomic status).“When I try to recall what’s happened to me, it’s mainly that they downplay it, downplay it by saying… ‘Oh, poor thing.’ Mainly that—I’m looking at it very, very much from a work perspective, because that’s what I remember most and how they approached it with me.” (Man, with a history of depression, middle socioeconomic status).“So I told him, ‘Dad, I know I need to see a psychiatrist; I need help.’ And at that moment, his response was something like, ‘But you’re finishing your degree, they’re going to give you your house, you have a son—everything’s fine, so why can’t you see that?’” (Woman, with a history of depression, low socioeconomic status). |
| Interaction scripts | Avoiding the issue“I think that, in general, people tend to be more careful when they’re interacting with someone who has depression—or when they know they’re interacting with someone who has depression. Like, I don’t know, not talking about certain topics or not asking them certain things. Maybe to (...) prevent any kind of crisis in the person with depression or something like that.” (Woman, no history of depression, middle socioeconomic status).“You try to be gentler with that person, treat them as if they were fragile, like a vase that can’t be broken anymore. How do you approach it? How do you find the right words so the person doesn’t feel bad? Sometimes it’s not even that you’re using the wrong words, but you think you are—trying to be as gentle as possible with that person.” (Woman, with a history of depression, lower-middle socioeconomic status).Support and inclusion“Supporting them, not leaving them alone—that’s what’s difficult. Depression goes through different stages, so the level of support you provide depends on the stage. For example, with milder cases of depression… you support them, hugging the person when it helps. But, for example, I haven’t personally experienced severe depression, but in much more severe cases, you can’t really leave the person alone because they might be at risk of—I don’t know—suicide, wanting to kill themselves, or things like that.” (Man, no history of depression, middle socioeconomic status).“Ultimately, what you have to try to do is listen, and try to make that person feel like doors are opening for them, so they can be understood and cared for.” (Woman, no history of depression, high socioeconomic status).“They felt bad for me, as I mentioned. I think they didn’t know… they didn’t know how to handle the situation I was going through at that moment. They didn’t put a name to it either—like saying, ‘She has this,’ for example, ‘depression’ or something—but rather, they didn’t know what it was, because it also came with stomach pain. (...) But they always kind of supported me—they were more affectionate during that time, saying things like, ‘It doesn’t matter anymore; don’t go to school; you don’t want to go.’” (Woman, with a history of depression, low socioeconomic status). |
