People on Earth suffer for various reasons – they become afflicted because they lose their important ones, their partners, or parents or siblings, and sometimes this grief is overwhelming. You may experience unrequited love, or fail at an important exam, or you cannot get the job that suits you for various reasons – all these things make you feel sad.
Sadness is an essential emotion, without which we will be in spiritual destitution. But what if this state happens seemingly for nothing? What if you feel unfortunate for most of the day, with nothing that fuels you and energizes you? For no good reason, you have lost appetite and you are as thin as a twig? You are prone to sleeping too much, still, you are fatigued at any time of the day.
Depression is the worst villain of mental diseases but thanks goodness it is treatable. The first step is to admit that you have a problem and actively seek help, from your surroundings.
Share! It is hard for people to know what’s going on in your mind. From people, from their compassion and devotion, you will feel empowered to fight with this irksome and horrible state.
What’s hardest is to explain to the rest of humanity what is going on with you. You tell the people you are depressed, they go: “Why? Look at how great your life is!” This sounds as if you say to somebody with asthma “What do you mean? Look at this wonderful air!”
Nobody understands depression. You spend your life in waiting, you don’t know what for, and you are quite scared of what it might be. If you are able to send the message across to people who love you, they will be terrified of the way you exist. You feel the desire to hide from the world, to give up. In your daily round don’t like to be with other people, you feel they don’t like you and you don’t like them and you believe there is something incredibly wrong with you. Why can’t you be like other people?
You compare yourself to a certain perfect woman, who’s got kids, a really great job, she dresses really well and she is elegant, and organized…which is everything that you are not.
Life seems so hard! You’ve lost interest in almost everything.What is happening to you? You don’t realize, but the fact you’re human means, that you have probably had at least an episode of depression. When you feel you don’t want to get out of the bathroom because you will only become dirty again.
By all means, reach out! Talk to somebody you can trust. Most people with depression do not communicate about their situation and trust me, you need help. Depression needs to be treated, it is as severe as any major physical illness. It is not your choice to feel this way. You should approach a specialist for medical care. Your parents, siblings, and friends DO NOT understand what is happening to you, but there are ways to explain if you put effort into it.
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb –
This is lovely Emily Dickinson, who knew things about depression. The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality. Your daily challenges seem too strenuous to you – almost tribulations. For example when you want to eat, but you have to open the fridge and place food on your plate, you don’t feel like doing this. The most terrible sensation which comes with depression is anxiety – a feeling that you have when you slip while you are walking; only that feeling lasts not for several seconds – but for months.
Depression is not sadness, it is not grief –it is much, much more terrible than these states – it is a slow way of dying, every single day. You have nothing to say to a depressed person – while he is worrying himself about existential stuff, you say things such as: “You are right, but we should think now what we will have for breakfast.” People are inadequate in their attitude to depressives. They tend to advise them and tell them how well they have to feel. One has to think about all the ways that people help themselves in such a situation.
