You cannot cure them, and that is not your failure

You have probably been trying to pull somebody out of this for a long time, and it has not worked, and part of you has started to wonder whether you are doing it wrong. You are not. Depression and anxiety do not respond to being loved hard enough. If they did, nobody with a good family would ever be ill.

What family actually provides is different and smaller and genuinely powerful: staying, not flinching, and making it possible for them to get treatment. That is the job. It is not a consolation prize.

Name the job

1. Write down everything you have been trying to do for them.
2. Go through the list and mark each one: is this something a family member can do, or is this treatment?
3. Draw a line under the family column. That is your job.
4. Keep the page. You will want it on a bad week.