One of the worst aspects of depression is what I like to call self-bullying energy. It's the unrelenting stream of negative thoughts directed at yourself. So it's self-critical and it's self-rejecting. 💙

And it's a stream of constant thoughts along the lines of, "I should", "I have to", "I must", "I've got to", "why can't I"? And it's very critical, very judgmental and very negative. And it takes a long time to unwind those thoughts. 💙

But the first step is for other people to show compassion, and then the person with depression can model that and show compassion to themselves. 💙