One thing that should be pointed out is that although clinical depression is a disease, having biochemical roots and often responding to biochemical treatment, depression is often triggered by some external event: bereavement, a breakup, unemployment, an injury, or some other loss. For this reason, the depressed person may not think that the depression is a disease, but rather the result of the external loss.

Last year I had to put down my fiddle and guitar for six months because of a hand injury. However, I didn't only stop playing music, I also stopped watering my plants, going to church, following my diet, brushing my teeth, getting out of bed before 11... and in the place of all these important things I spent an awful lot of time lying on the floor crying, or sitting on the couch staring at the wall, for hours on end. Although I never considered suicide a real option I did fantasize about it plenty and really wished that I was dead.

Losing the ability to do what you love most, even if it isn't a permanent loss, is a serious loss and it's normal to mourn it. What I went through was not normal mourning. Looking back now, I had a textbook case of clinical depression. But at the time, because my depression was triggered by the hand injury, I totally believed that my unhappiness was all about mourning my music and didn't consider seeking medical attention.

So in terms of advice, Thomas: if your friend has suffered an external loss lately, she may be reluctant to see a doctor because she believes that her unhappiness is caused by the loss and that getting the lover/job/music/whatever back is the only way out. If that's the case, you may need to help her to see that she's gone beyond normal mourning, and that a trigger is different from a cause.

As Little Hawk said, there can be a little good to be found even in something like depression; my good was that I learned a lot about who my friends are, and what friends they are. It may be that the concern and faithfulness you are showing are literally keeping her alive. So thank you, and God be with you both.

Love, Marion