On how depression is like being drunk

    It amazes me how much depression has remained in my conversations while I'm (temporarily) in a state of relative emotional good health. But maybe that's a good thing. For the record, everything I'm going to say here is based on my own experience. It may help someone else or not. I'm an expert only at what I've lived through.
     I was at a bar this past weekend, talking to some friends, when what should enter the conversation but that one of them was celebrating that he'd recently crawled out of a longer-than-usual depressive funk. After congratulating him on making it through, I decided to show him one of my tricks I use when no one else is around to see what a state I'm in. That led to him asking the question that has lodged in my mind ever since. How can one help someone struggling with depression while being in that very same pit, themselves?
     Today, I came up with the perfect analogy. Helping a depressed person when you're depressed is kind of like two drunks trying to help each other stay standing. It's messy, and awkward, but somehow it still works out. For a while, at least. So here's what I do:
     I keep a folder of pictures in my phone. It's labelled as "Inspiration" and is full of images that have positive comments.

 They remind me in my worst moments that the bad moment I'm in won't last forever.

 They remind me that even though I may question it, I have people who care about me.

 They remind me that even though I'm feeling bad, I can be something good for someone else.

     Because I know that if I can just get through one more day, it'll get better eventually. Even when I'm at my worst, it often makes me feel just a little better to know that I've done something to help someone else.
     I have a best friend. I talk about her enough that I don't think I need to explain how awesome she is again. When I hit my absolute worst points, where I think I'm not worth anything, and don't deserve to have any friends, she manages to make me smile. Even if only for a few minutes. And that is enough to get me through one more day. And when she's in her bad places of a different variety, I do whatever I can. I listen, I commiserate. I make wild, insane plots of cartoonish violence that we will never actually attempt.
     And if I'm merely leaning on another depressed person, while it may not be pretty, eventually one of us will start to feel a little better. And no one has fallen down. Because we're holding each other up.