Help

I have a friend who is very similar to me. I've known her for a long time, and she also struggles with depression. We take the same medication. The problem I have is that she experiences some symptoms of depression that I struggled with for some time (and to some extent, I still do). I think most depressed people would agree that one of the hardest things to achieve is social interaction. It's genuinely hard to answer that text or that Facebook message or get one's thoughts coherent enough to be able to make plans. It's not that you're ignoring those interactions; the depression won't let you do anything else. I found this for a long time.

My question, fellow depressed people, is this: what would you like a friend to do for you that would help with these symptoms? So far I've been inviting her out for lunches/dinners/drinks - I don't always get a reply but that's the depression, not her - and I sent her a personalised Christmas card with old photos of us and a lengthy quote from Great Expectations, a book that means a lot to us despite neither of us having read it because reasons I won't go into here. I hope she received it but I don't know.

I feel like as a friend I can always do more. I will not give up on trying to be consistent through this depression thing, I just need a bit of help figuring out what I can do for her that would actually be useful and not annoying or misguided or just plain unhelpful. If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it if you would share them with me in the comments. Thanks in advance Internet people :)