How to talk to a depressed person
To hold a conversation with a depressed person is a sort of art. If your friend is depressed and you want to help him/her you should at first weigh your abilities up. The very wish to help is not enough. The measure of closeness of your friendship doesn't matter much here. An unknown person can sometimes be more helpful, here we don't mean specialists but ordinary people.
A depressed person is different from an ordinary one. He/she requires special attention and approach. This person may react inadequately to some of your utterances, misunderstand your words. That is why you should come to such talks very seriously and be ready to aggression from your interlocutor, wrong interpretation of your pieces of advice etc. You should be very careful and weigh each word before you utter it. Before giving a piece of advice you should imagine and predispose all possible variants of reaction to them. To reconcile a depressed person is a hard and thankless task which requires much effort and patience.
Mind that a depressed person is more convinced in his/her hopelessness than you in your positive mood. That is why it is often easier for a depressed person to transform his/her depression to you than for you to reassure a depressed person. To help a depressed person you must be a full opposite to him/her. Otherwise you are more likely to plunge into depression then to help a depressed person.
One more way to divert a depressed person from this terrible state is to switch him/her over to something pleasant. Try to remind him/her your previous meetings, jokes, funny occasions etc. you should recollect together only those events, when this person was in high spirits. You must return him/her mentally to pleasant experience from the past. Ask this person to remember the see, for example, the sea and everything connected with the sea: seagulls, clouds, fresh air, waves, the sense of unconcern and serenity. This way of reconciliation can be extremely helpful. The experience of serenity and calm have some common features with depression: Either you are depressed or calm you see no future before you. The difference is that when you are depressed, the absence of future is a burden for you, but when you are calm you simply don't think of your future as you don't need it and enjoy the present moment. Thus it is easy to find a positive side in the present day reality.
A depressed person sees only bad shades of reality and you must show the bright side of it. There is no need to be so concerned about the future. We have no power before the future we can't change it, that is why depression won't help to solve our problems and it is meaningless.