This is no revelation now that we live in a hypocritical society. We have come very far now to even question this fact. So when it comes to the topic of depression we are no different. And when I say we, I mean every one of us. There is no exception!
We give so much importance to this word, and try and spread so much awareness about it that we only talk about it. We talk and talk but what exactly do we do about it? We know that someone is depressed, that someone wants to talk about it, but what we do is, we simply smile at him or her and ask him or her to hold up. We give them our own selfish philosophy that in this world every one has come alone, and has to deal with his problems alone, no one is going to come rescue you. If it is a woman, she is told that there is no knight who will come to rescue her, and if it is a man, he is told to man up. We shower upon them all our human tendencies and tell them how our world is run. We ask them to forget about it all, and just move one. Talking about it is a no-no because talking reminds you of your problems, crying over it is an absolute no too, because that will make you more miserable. A person who says is depressed, is also told to just lighten up the mood, why take everything so seriously, “these days people call any low phase in their life as depression; it’s taken too much for granted.”
But honestly, one doesn’t understand until one wears those shoes. And once you say these words to someone, that someone is sure to show you his true colors. If by any chance the person is genuine and knows how painful all of it is, then you get lucky and a pair of ears who will listen to you, but if the person belongs to the typical swarm then what you get is a long lecture to your drumming ears to be a little more brave, to hold up, and to stop fussing over your own problems, because there are other people in the world who have bigger issues than yours.
I guess these people don’t just get what exactly depression is. It is not something, which someone is proud to go through. It is not something that people like to have lived. Depression is not a choice!! And no one in my opinion will ever want to have any loved one go through it, let alone go through himself.
Depression is not a choice!!
No one wants it.
Depression is a state of mind so dark, so murky, that it wraps itself around you so strongly that you will need every ounce of your and your loved one’s energy to bring you back to sanity. It is a state of utter senselessness where you know what’s happening, where you hate what’s happening, you want to do so much to change things and yet all you can do is shut yourself in. All you can do is to grip your hair from the roots and scream into nothingness.
And yet, I feel that it is a drug. Sure, a druggist when drugged, might feel like he is flying in the air, but deep down he is doing it only to numb his pain, either pain from life, or the pain of his addiction. In the same way a depressed person wants only one thing, to numb his pain. He is never in the seventh sky, but he is constantly at the same place, away from the earth, his own world, and knows not his belongings. Depression is almost an addiction, because try as much as you want, you don’t get out of it easily. You know it’s not doing you any good, but you become so comfortable with that state of life, that it becomes a toxic addiction. I am not saying that the person does not want to come out of the state, no, far from it; the person is dying to come out of that helplessness. But the problem lies in the fact that that depression is not only inside his mind, but outside too. People make it difficult for him to do so. At first he is scared of opening up and being judged, then if he finally musters the energy to discuss his problems, then he is in reality being judged, and given solutions, which he already knew. “Talk to people” is what is said so easily, but when someone does it, you take it so lightly that you break the person’s trust permanently; you break his beliefs from the roots.
I am not saying that it is the fault of other people that someone is depressed, all I am saying is it is sometimes far more comfortable to not talk and instead be in that comfort zone of depression.
It is a drug to which one takes again and again, despite all restrictions. Elizabeth Gilbert speaks in Eat Pray love of how her Guru talks about breaking down becoming a habit. The more you tend to break down; the more it becomes a habit. Every time one feels that something is wrong, breaking down and shattering won’t help. So you gather your own remains and rise from the ashes just like a phoenix. But all of it sounds irrelevant when going through bouts of depression. Sometimes you want to come out of these chains, but don’t have the energy to, and the other times, you simply don’t want to come out for fears unsaid.
What troubles me most is people tend to take depression so flippantly, sometimes the person going through it too. It is not a state where someone stays drunk all the time, and lies about simply doing nothing. It is not only when someone has thoughts of killing himself. Sure, these are signs too, of extreme depressions, but there are people who go about their lives just as usual but deep down there are signs of the said drug. These people start cocooning in their shells, distancing themselves from people. It is not that they don’t smile; it’s just that their smiles are painful too. I won’t say that depressed people stop going to offices, and louse around all day long, they go to their office all the same, but they just lose the vigor to work. They are simply dragging themselves around life, devoid of certain feelings within them.
Again, I think people tend to think that depression is caused only due to certain trauma. Our perception of the word is so wrong; that we think a person is allowed to be depressed only when he is going through something volcanic in his life. We tend to not even take it into consideration that little things have been piling up in his already over burdened heart, and all of it is going to burst soon. He might just not want to live with it anymore, but he is denied of this title being given to him, for the lack of a tragedy. Tragedy or not, a person can be depressed; period!
There are so many different phases of depression that we have taken only the darkest side into consideration, all thanks to cliché movies, and our societal belief that you simply cannot be depressed, because being depressed is a sign of being lunatic, and you simply can’t let that happen. What will the people say?? SIGH!!
A person suffering may not be crying 24*7 all year long; that is not depression!! It is not when one is crying his eyes out, with blood red eyes, a drunk head, a ruined liver, lungs full of smoke, a crying heart, and a murky mind. Yes, this could be it. But this is not it!! It is not that the one who is depressed does not smile. He does. He does feel happy sometimes, he does feel that everything will be all right soon, a pinch of positivity does rise from the ashes sometimes, but it evaporates too soon to be carrying him above it. That negativity envelops him too severely, too stringently.
But all of this does not mean that there is no solution, there certainly is. But the first step towards it, is accepting the fact that you are depressed. You cannot live in denial. I am not saying that you can’t avoid your problems for a while, well according to me that helps, because living with certain things constantly may not help, so avoiding it for a while is okay. But accept it, accept that you have a problem, and avoid it. Say, you admit that you are depressed, but then you avoid the said depression. Sounds, okay? Fine, I agree, easier said that done.
But now that you have accepted it, you know what the problem is. Believe me, people aren’t going to help, unless you have an understanding family, and a set of very close and loving friends. If so, then it becomes so much easier for you. Talk to them, not once, again and again, with all kinds of words and emotions, with all kinds of slangs and love. Talk!! Talk till you wear their ears out and then just leave it behind. Divert your mind, do things you haven’t done. Learning new things might keep you more occupied, since you have no prior knowledge of it. Do things you love, and then slowly think of real problems, and how you want to go about it. Take your time!! You might take from days to years, but it is your problem and you deal with it at your pace.
But if you are in a fix, and you don’t think that people are going to understand, then write it down. Write all different thoughts jumbled up, write till your ink wears down, and then deal with it yourself. But never in a fit of desperation go to someone who you think will not understand a word of it. This will simply disarray your mind up, and will send you to such extreme levels of low, which was yet unknown. You cannot feel dejected, useless, and broken at this point. You might start thinking that you were there for someone, and in return you got plain misery from him, but this is not the time, to cry over someone else. He abandoned you in times of need, and now you don’t need to go back to him. That’s truth, and you don’t even have to accept it now, you simply have to try and deal with yourself one step at a time.
Accept- write-divert-learn-deal-take your time.
I am no depression or counseling guru, but this topic has bothered me so much, our callousness sometimes gets into my nerves, and I cannot help but think how casually we take these important issues. We can share suicide prevention causes and messages, for all we want, but it makes no differences until we actually do something about it. On the one hand we say that suicide is a crime, you should not even think about it, and on the other hand we are simply mean and so selfish that we don’t even care to think of others. And it’s not only in the society, but online too. People, sometimes act so, so inconsiderately and are so nasty and unkind that I fail to understand the hypocrisy of the society that we live in. I fail to bring out the words that I have in my mind for such people. No one wants to end his life willingly, unless he thinks that he cannot deal with his problems anymore, alone. No one wants that!! One goes to such extremes only when he thinks that he can take no more. But we keep giving them some more.
There is a lot here which I might have missed out, or which I might have portrayed wrong, and I apologize for that. I have no intention of hurting anyone’s feelings. But at the same time, I take the liberty to say that instead of becoming the cool and classy people that society so much accepts, why not show some love and humanity in general. Sometimes I sincerely wish if honesty and kindness was in trend, I think our world would be lot more better then.
