Are you ok with listening to your friend's depressing story?

Personally, I very much enjoy listening to anyone's depressing story, because I can often relate with them in one way or another. It's even more enjoyable, if I can possibly help them or make them feel better.

But surely, there must be people out there that absolutely despise listening to gloomy or sad story. Some say depression or misery is contagious, so I can easily imagine many people not wanting to hear a depressing story.

I ask this, because when someone is going through a tough time, a lot of people give them the advice to "talk to someone." For me, I have plenty of friends and people to talk to (I think...), but 98% of the time I choose not to, because I am hesitant that my partner would feel unpleasant listening to my story. Not to mention, there is a possibility that they might not keep the story to themselves. I am kind of anxious right now, because all is well if the majority of poll turns out to be Yes or Depends, but if it is No then I might be a little frustrated lol.

I mean it both depends on the person listening to what you are saying and how you are about things.

Some people are able to sit and listen to others talk about whatever for hours and days on end never getting bored or annoyed. Others can barely sit for five minutes listening to you talk about the weather. I know that I can do it sporadically myself, but it doesn't mean that a person cares any less about someone who wants to open up. We are all human and have our own lives to live and struggle with. Those that can sit and listen/help with the problem of others have a true gift. Those that can't are sometimes selfish, but most of the time just don't know how to handle the hardships of others or have a hard life themselves they are trying to figure out.

The other depends on how you go about talking to people and who you decide to trust. Some people when they go through a rough time and want to talk to people about it may need to talk about it more then once. That can be fine and all, but there are some who take this to the extreme and literally depend on that person for comfort they cannot find within themselves. I know I try to help people with there problems, but I do have a cutoff to that helping depending on the situation. If you just want to wallow in self pity without actually trying to change or find a way to lessen your suffering (aka suffering for the sake of suffering) then I cannot help you. I won't just sit and listen to you bitch day in-and-out.

When you open up to someone it's also good to find a person or people you know you can trust to an extent. If you barely know the people you are talking to or you know that they are an open book, don't talk to them. It's also not a very good idea to try and make an uncaring person try to care, because even though they seem like a good listener, they usually will get annoyed. Finding the right people to talk to is just a trial and error sort of thing. Eventually you'll find people you can be open with and won't judge.

The biggest thing though is even if you have a story to tell and you need help you always need to remember to look out for yourself. At anyone's darkest hours there may not be a friend or person to help you out so you may have to rely on your inner strength to get you through the hard times. People may come at random times, but you need to find a way to deal with things best you can till they come. It also helps to have thicker skin when you open up about things to others. I know I am pretty open about myself to people, but I also keep in mind that anything I say can be used against me or people don't have to care if I open up.

tl;dr - be strong within yourself through the hardships, find people willing to give you the time of day and work on improving things with those that care and within yourself. Don't wallow in self pity and depend on people to be there for you; if they come into your life awesome, if not or they leave then be strong till you find more.

I don't mind listening to people's problems and chipping in some advice to help, if I can think of a response. It helps to be able to relate in some way and when they show gratitude, feels good man.

Its happened to me where i begin to feel their pain with them. Other times it like "Dude i love you but please. For the love of everything normal left in my brain, Shut. The hell. Up!" I even had one who was suicidal (he didnt do it thanks to my pep-talks) but he began to make me feel like that.

Im ok with it because i am more than happy to help my friends. Just i sometimes hate myself for it because ill help even if it will make my life harder in the process.

I'm silly like that~

Back in highschool, it was the worst thing ever.

All these shut-in girls that I was barely friends with kept coming to me, complaining about daddy problems, relationship problems, best-friend problems,etc. I don't know if it's because I lack empathy to a point or whatever, but I always hated hearing them.

The one thing I learned was to never give advice because:
a) I'm no Psychologist or Therapist. It doesn't matter if I've been through something similar, my advice will clearly not be a good one.
b) I sometimes have no advice except for, in my mind, "Deal with it."
c) Listening is apparently good enough (according to the people who've talked to me)

But at the same time, I have a friend who likes to keep everything to himself. Even when his dad died, he acted like nothing happened. I only found out because of my mom (our parents are friends as well). I'm definetly a hypocrite for never sharing anything with him, but I'd like it if he'd at least tell me about these things. When I told him that I knew what happened, he just said things are okay, then changed the subject.

So overall, it definetly depends on what the story is, not who says it.

Not unusual for folks to just spill their problems with me. Longest was a full six hours.

I always have been someone my friends come to for advice for some reason. So I don't mind hearing a depressing story or so on and giving them some idea how to fix it all.

The problem starts when a friend comes to me with a problem I gave them advice for and they just decided to either go opposite way of advice or ignore it. I am not asking them to listen to my advice, but if I gave you some good advice and you come back with same problem then fault on me. But they come back with same problem and nothing using advice....

How depressing are we talking about? Because there's a point where it can get so depressing that it becomes hilarious. So maybe...

I've always been a good listener, and I try to be constructive with whatever they tell me and find a solution to the problem; however, from my experience, simply verbalizing your problems often causes an epiphany of sorts. Sometimes the solution just comes to you when you give up and ask for someone else's advice. While I'd like to say I give good advice, I really don't give myself that much credit. I just help people find their own inner strength.

I wish I could say the same for myself though. While I don't mind listening to other people's problems, I try to avoid placing my burdens on others until it's practically killing me. It's not healthy and I need to get better at that.

Nope. Most of the time when I hear a story im not interested in, i think to myself, i cant wait for them to finish because my story is way better.

Its never a bad thing to share your good and bad times with your friends, you can learn something from their story, aswell as help them to recover from whatever depression they have experienced. It will also relieve your friend, help him feel better after listening to his story.

I usually don't mind listening to people's problems, along with giving them a little advice (if they're open to receiving that advice). Though some people I know come to me for advice yet don't like to listen and end up coming back with the same problem over and over again. So it really depends for me, because I draw the line at hearing the same worn out story more than twice.

Since i don't have that many friends, i'm ok with that aslong as they will listen to my problems / things too.
Mostly i hear alot of daily problems around my job, but that aside if a friend is in need i will always listen and help them.
That's just my instinct.

I'm always happy to learn something about my friends. Whether it's about getting a rare drop in Monster Hunter or about how much they loved their now deceased grandma if it's important to them I'm more than happy to oblige.

A lot of people don't realize that if someone feels down, just listening can help a lot. You don't have to be advice master or anything, but knowing someone actually cares to listen makes quite the difference.

Only as gossip and from a secondary source.

Of course. It may bum me out but if it makes Lime feel better then I'll sit and listen and even talk about it.

Thankfully she doesn't do it often.
And it happens more with her sister than it does with me. Lemon is much better at dealing with emotional distress.