The Psychology of Depression and Anxiety - Dr. Scott Eilers

How To Have Healthy Relationships Even While Living With Depression

13 snips

Jan 23, 2026

Practical strategies for keeping relationships strong while living with chronic depression. Tips on when and how to disclose struggles and how to tell others you are in a depressive episode. Ways to counter distorted thinking and relational anhedonia. Concrete tools like prompts, reminders, and structure to preserve connection and appreciation even during low periods.

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ADVICE

Disclose Your Depression Early

Tell people you experience chronic depression before it affects your relationship.
Disclosure prevents others from personalizing mood changes and reduces misunderstandings.

ADVICE

Announce When An Episode Occurs

Tell people when you are in an episode so they know how to respond.
Explicitly setting expectations prevents frustration when your functioning changes week to week.

ADVICE

Act On Values, Not Momentary Feelings

Act on your values and beliefs rather than acute depressive feelings.
Choose consistent, value-based behaviors to avoid self-fulfilling relationship harm.

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Chronic depression can wreck relationships—friends, family, coworkers, and especially romantic partners. But I don’t believe it’s inevitable that you end up alone.In this video, I share the highest-conviction strategies I’ve learned (through a lot of trial and error) for building relationships that can survive depressive episodes—without turning your partner into your therapist or expecting people to read your mind.

You’ll learn:

Why disclosure matters (and how it protects your relationships)
What to say when you’re in an episode, not just “I have depression”
How depression creates a filter that distorts how you interpret people
Why relational anhedonia can make you feel detached from people you love
How to avoid making relationship decisions from a depressive state
Why appreciation of effort matters even when “nothing helps”
How prompts, reminders, and structure can keep connection alive

If you’re in the middle of a rough season: you’re not broken, and you’re not unlovable. Your brain is doing what depressed brains do. The goal is to build relationships that don’t collapse every time the weather changes.

If my podcast has helped, my new book, The Light Between the Leaves, goes even deeper

Next Steps:📩 Get Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered weekly.

About me:

I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings. I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.

Resources

🪣 Get my free 5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles.

😴 Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps with my new Sleep Workbook.

📖 My 1st book: For When Everything is Burning

Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.

But I do care.