Boyfriends depression

Hi!

This is my first post on here but it’s one of the biggest “relationship problems” that I face right now.

This guy that I’ve been going out with for a couple months pretty quickly opened up to me about having depression and about his past with self harm. What I mean by opening up is that he told me he has depression and that he struggles with self harm and that’s it. We didn’t have a conversation about it, it was more like a few sentences. Of course I tried to have a conversation with him about it, but he shut it down pretty quickly. He claims that when he’s feeling depressed, it’s never caused by anything in particular. He says he starts feeling bad for no reason, so there’s no point to talk about it.

I of course want to talk to him about it and he has a couple times but always kept to conversations short. I know that must be a defense mechanism but it’s frustrating on my end! He will put on Twitter that he is feeling sad or “overthinking again” and when I confront him about it to see if he’s okay, he gets upset that I’m asking... as if he didn’t put it on social media for the world to see!

A friend of his told me that his previous girlfriend also struggled with depression and self harm. She said their relationship was just a constant cycle of each one of them self harming themselves and trying to hide it from the other, then getting angry when they find them.

I personally see that as some game they were playing with each other and I would never get angry at him for feeling certain ways. :/

Basically my question is,

1. when I see that he’s been self harming, how do I approach the situation in a way that doesn’t make him feel attacked?

2. How do I make him feel like he can open up to me more than he does?

3. How can I help him to stop self harming? 4. If it progress, is it okay for me to suggest him seeking professional help?

Thank you!! 😊