My son is seven years old. In seven year he has accumulated a lot of toys. Naturally, there are many that he has grown out of, and surprisingly there a few that he hasn’t. For example, my sister bought him a Brio starter train set for his first birthday and over the years it has expanded so much that he has a giant toy box dedicated to it.

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The very first blog post I ever wrote was about my son. He came home from school one day, put a tonne of body lotion on his face and asked me if that was enough to make him white. When I asked him why he wanted to be white, he proceeded to tell me that he just didn’t want to be black any more; all his friends were white and he was tired of being different.

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Last Saturday our cat was, for lack of a better word, violated but a local tom cat. They were ‘doing-the-do’ all day and, inevitably, my son spotted them. Naturally curious, he asked me what they were doing. I always thought that, faced with that question, I would be the cool mother and just tell it like it is; but he caught me off guard and I panicked.

I told him they were playing!

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I was at a family gathering a few years ago and one of my friend’s sons, 10 years old, was messing about and fell off the sofa.  He landed quite badly and when he picked himself up it was obvious that he was hurt and trying to fight back the tears. A couple of people asked if he was OK, and still he was fighting it.

Then one of my male friends walked up to him and said, “It’s OK to cry you know, I would have cried if that were me.” At that point the boy burst into tears and cried out for his mother.

It’s like he needed permission to express the way he felt.

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I received a comment on my last post Depression: How to Recognize and Respond from a fellow sufferer. She explained that one of the things she can’t bear is when a well-wisher tells her what she should do when she’s depressed. I empathize with that.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment; it’s just that, if I’m in crisis, certain responses are more hurtful than helpful. So I have compiled a list of things that you should avoid saying to someone who is depressed, along with some appropriate alternatives.

 

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There is an elephant in the room and its name is Depression.

Nobody wants to talk about it.

Nobody even wants to look at it.

It is ignored, and because of this, it is running rampant.

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