Driving people to suicide

Noone does it deliberately, but there are things we do that don't help
We run away because we are afraid their depression will make us depressed.
However mature adults learn that doing what you don't like ( getting closer) is somehow good for us ----eh!
Depressed people are hard company - They drive away the fainthearted .
See below ) But YOU can help - just listen and nod face to face you don't have to solve any dilemmas : Get in the car and go there . Get out the pen and post the letter off . Weep with those who weep and we will stop weeping and being angry all the time .
Things we do that don't help
1 We stay away
2. We think we have to offer solutions- we don't . Honest sharing is needed . Telling them they are OK / everything is OK , when they haven't resolved their own guilt is not right either . Say nothing is fine !What use are mere words
3. Ignoring their real feelings and maybe internal confusion . ( got to know what they are really thinking not just what they say upfront )
4. Being Sentimental when they want you to be serious , straightforward and strong -Ask the hard questions . Offer to let them put the hard questions and doubts they have. Say clearly what's wrong and how to fix it ( restoration can comes with objectivity but never with denial)
5 Avoid ticking good behaviour boxes- people in trouble often know how to behave well . What they don't always know or accept is how and why they should stop doing something they enjoy ( resisting temptation; doing something they need to do, not just what they want to do )
6 Not help the person accept their own failures ( resisting the idea that the problem is someone else's )
7 Talking about their dilemmas without talking to them first is wrong ( 8th commandment forbids you to bear informnation away from , rather than back to, the person of concern. Check everything with the person first )
8 Maladjustments of the telecommunication age : ( Telecom 2000 report) Tv does this by talking about a persons problems when its none of our business - eg Ben Cousins tonight on TV - we should leave the bloke alone !
9 Real understanding of rural dilemmas . Assumming because farming families have high assets that are they are rich . Most farming families sacrifice a lot over many generations to keep the farm with high levels of unpaid labour going back in many cases generations ( wives and children in particular - why do think " the young farmer can't get a wife" ? . Don't patronise them - they will do anything to carry the burden their grandparents bore - its too easy to say " cash it all in" Life on the farm is not summed up in 2 columns of a ledger
10. Real understanding of rural dilemmas Well meaning "green" talk can be blatantly offensive because its partial ( a risk is not a reality ) , ignorant or simplistic .Ask questions BLOG The best conservationists this country will ever have are landholders. They used to be "the salt of the earth" . Now listening to some smartarses from the city, you would think they were the main perpetrators of our environmental problems - "the scum of the earth".
If you want to help --learn to listen and study resilience - the sky will not fall ( the earth, unlike our computers, was made resilient) while people on the earth listen to the earth and love each other enough to tell them in the rare cases ( mainly overseas ) where they are pushing it, and MAYBE their own will, too hard .