Love help: Want to cheer my friend up, she is very depressed after breakup. - Help.com

i would say your being a great friend hun
all you can do is be there for her&listen to her
reassure her things will be fine

your a good mate, well done :)

It is a mistake to try to forget someone. The more you focus on forgetting, the more you remember that person.

The best approach is to accept those feelings of loss: denial, anger, regrets, and depression. They are the stages of loss on the road to acceptance. It is actually not helpful to “cheer someone up” when they feel they are supposed to avoid thoughts of their loss.

It would be far more helpful to help her explore all those “dangerous” feelings I listed above, letting her express herself to you. Your job is simply to listen… not to argue, not to say the sun will shine again, but allow her to express what is clogged up inside her. As long as those feelings are not expressed, she will continue to suffer.

Dealing with loss is a two prong process:

1 - accept the feelings, feel them, express them but do not drown in them; the feelings of loss are natural

2 - commit to the future and use the past as a source of knowing yourself better: what is compatible with me? what is not compatible with me? focus on a breakup as an issue of compatibility… it is not the fault of either person… every relationship is a cycle between both people and there’s no way to blame one person or the other particularly when it lasts so long

Linuxya, she doesn’t want to avoid thoughts of her loss. She tells me that she wants her ex-bf back. But how is that possible? Her ex-bf has a new girl now. I have allowed her to tell whatever she feels. She has already expressed a lot of her clogged feelings. But, no matter what she does, they don’t go away. I have even told her that she can never forget the guy. I’ve told her that gradually these negative feelings will go away and new thoughts and memories will occupy her mind. I told her all this from my breakup experience. But I know all this will take time. A few more months to a year. All I want is to make this time easier for her. But I don’t really know how. I have listened to her when she wanted to express her anger and regrets. I have told her stories and jokes when she seemed to be in a better mood. Is there anything more that I can do?

theres not really much you can do lv, over the phone.

Anonymous wrote:
Linuxya, she doesn’t want to avoid thoughts of her loss. She tells me that she wants her ex-bf back.

Dude, read what you wrote. That is completely avoiding her loss. It is DENIAL. Denial is the first stage in dealing with loss. Anger, regrets and depression are the others.

As long as she DENIES that it is over and thinks she could get him back, then she is avoiding her feelings of loss.

You need to keep on doing what you are doing now! I have been in a similar situation. It could take her over a year or more to get over it! But slowly things will get better day by day, even just a tiny bit.

In the long term, she wont think about him anymore when she wakes up etc. If I was in her position, the best thing you can do is just be there for her - even if your not talking or doing anything. Just being there helps.

Try to make some plans with her, something for he to look forward to ?

Your being a good friend… just hang on in there for her… she’ll come through it eventually…. ten years is a long time and she may take a while to recover.