What do you say to someone who’s depressed? All too often, it’s the wrong thing.

“People still have such a cloudy idea of what mental illness is,” Kathleen Brannon, of Herndon, Virginia, tells Health.

“Sometimes people will say, ‘Oh, you’re depressed? Yeah, I’ve been depressed,’ and you realize just the way they say it that, nooo, it’s not quite the same thing. It’s not just that I’m feeling sad or blue.”

Below is a list of helpful things to tell someone battling depression, followed by what not to say—courtesy of the Depression Alliance, a national organization that campaigns to end the stigma of depression, provides information on depression treatment options, and raises awareness of what it means to live with the depression.

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