Telling a depression patient to take responsibility for their bad days is like telling a diabetes patient to stop passing out when their sugar level gets low.

I’m as “tough love” as they come when it comes to responsibility and mental illness. I’m a recovering anorexic, so I have to be. My anorexia is controlled almost entirely through behaviour management. If I'm having a bad food day, it's because my behaviours have been off key.

Not all mental illnesses are alike, though. The Hard-Ass-Big-Responsibility Approach doesn’t work for all mental illnesses just because it works for anorexia. Try creating a sculpture using nothing but a brush and water and you’ll start appreciating the right tools. They’re important with mental illness, too.

Personality disorders are fundamental differences in personality. Mood disorders have a physiological component and are not rooted in the personality. Their aetiology makes them responsive to medication, where personality disorders are not. Telling a depression patient to take responsibility for their bad days is like telling a diabetes patient to stop passing out when their sugar level gets low. Bad days are not the fault of the patient who is in treatment for a medical or psychiatric illness.

Can you ask a diabetes patient to take responsibility for their insulin shots? Yes, in the same way you can ask a depression patient to see a psychiatrist and do the prescribed treatment. But you can’t blame a diabetes patient when their bodies aren’t responsive to medication and lifestyle changes. You can’t blame a depression patient when their bodies don’t respond to medication and lifestyle changes.

The last thing you should suggest is that a depression patient “step back” and isolate themselves on their bad days to save the world from exposure to their symptoms. It’s cruel. It’s isolating. It’s dangerous. Ill people deserve as much life and love as healthy people do.

Mood disorders don’t need more loneliness. They need less.

Depression patients are ill. It’s not their fault. If they could make themselves better, they would.