Loving someone with depression or chronic illness isn’t about fixing.
It’s about learning to sit next to a pain you can’t name and won’t ever fully understand.
It’s about not walking away when the room goes quiet for the third day in a row.

They won’t always reach for you.
Not because they don’t need you,
but because needing feels dangerous to them.
They’ve been left mid-sentence before.
They’ve been punished for the weight they carry.

You can’t lift it off them.
You’re not here to save.
But you can become the one place where their exhaustion doesn’t have to be hidden.
The one person who doesn’t treat their sadness like an annoying thing to be repaired.
That’s a rare kind of relief –
to be allowed to unravel without losing the person watching.

Loving them means understanding that happiness might come slow and rarely.
That laughter might come sad, or not at all.
That some days, your presence will be met with silence, and your reward is knowing you didn’t leave.

It’s not fun.
It’s not romantic.
It’s just real.

And for someone who’s spent their life feeling like a burden,
your quiet, steady presence can be a form of proof:
That they don’t have to earn care.
That their darkness doesn’t scare you away.
That love isn’t a spotlight – it can be a low, constant hum.

If you can offer that,
it might not fix a thing.
But it can make staying alive feel less lonely.
And sometimes, that’s the only kind of miracle there is.