Also, supporting a depressed person needs lots of time and effort, and while they are depressed they give nothing back except bad vibes.
The medical term for what you are talking about is compassion fatigue. It's symptoms look a lot like depression: "People who experience compassion fatigue may exhibit a variety of symptoms including lowered concentration, numbness or feelings of helplessness, irritability, lack of self-satisfaction, withdrawal, aches and pains, or work absenteeism."
edit: I just found this meme: https://i.imgur.com/WCzNW77.png and I decided to link it here. People think friendship is something that is built over years because it takes years in order to have finally made it through enough hardship and shared struggle so calling each other friends is justified. This is the literal meaning of having a friend. You know they'll help you even you got nothing to give and without expecting anything in return from them.
I cannot decide if that is more abusive or more romanticized.
If you expect your friends to be there for you without you returning anything, you are abusing them. That isn't friendship, that is exploitation.
And if your friend is there for you even though you are incapable of returning anything, it is incredibly romantic. But also usually very limited, because that drain on your friend has consequences and needs to either be equalized by something (not you) or suck your friend dry until he himself is incapable. Which is a very un-romantic ending, because it leaves the world with 2 emotional cripples.
For me, friendship is also very much about knowing the limits of what i should make my friends suffer through.
I understand most people are more calculating. My own family who would keep tabs of what they give and receive so to never feeling they're in somebody#s debt. I'm like that in business situations, and to those who I know would do it to me, but not to those who are close enough to consider friend.
> for me, friendship is also very much about knowing the limits of what i should make my friends suffer through.
yes, this very much!