Pretty much. If you want to talk to me about what my symptoms are, and what I do to treat it, fine, I'm happy to discuss things most of the time, with the understanding that it's me telling you about my life experience, nothing more.

I know I'm coming off rude here, but the truth is, I don't want your advice on how to fix things, or worse, your advice that it's not as bad as I think it is, and that I can do whatever activity that I know will cause me problems tomorrow.

You're really not coming off as rude at all.

It's actually helpful. The bottom line is that I want to be supportive. And if I don't know how, I might make a guess at it and that guess might be the natural response of "try to help fix their problem."

It makes sense that you just don't want to hear that. I can empathize avec depression. Just listen to me and be patient with me. You can't fix this and it's kind of insulting that you try, as if I was too dumb to think up your idea.

(This also relates to software reviews too: I've spent a week on this problem. You suggesting I'm doing it wrong after five minutes of review can be really insulting)

> I know I'm coming off rude here

On the contrary, this is excellent advice! I know I feel a tendency to want to share my knowledge with friends and family because I think it may help. I should know better, because I do not like being given advice, and yet I have a lot of trouble avoiding giving it myself. When I try, I am accused of being aloof or uninterested. A hard line to walk, keeping my mouth shut is enough work all by itself ;-)

My employer had me go through training that had this video as part of the curriculum. Though I already understood the ideas, the video was still useful for me. It's less than 3 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

In short, sometimes people need connection to others; problem-solving mode isn't always the most useful path.

My wife once said to me, "I don't need an engineer I need my husband." And it clicked. She doesn't want a fix. She just wants a hand to hold and for me to hear her frustrations.

I can tell already that I do this and I should stop. My wife just hasn't said it yet.

I just always default to problem solving....

It's hard, but you'll start seeing it in more people than just your wife. And once you become the person who sometimes knows to just listen instead of immediately trying to fix, people will like you more.

It’s not about the nail.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

From my own chronic health issues, I think I just want pain to be seen and appreciated. Understand I need space/time to work on it. And whatever appropriate accommodations to be able to do my job.

That's actually fairly good, assuming you will actually try to help if the person asks for something specific. Since many people really can't help, you could also say:

"Damn that sounds awful. I hope you'll find a way to get better."