DEPRESSION: THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT

Hearing and reading whatnots about Mental Health Awareness is all over the internet, and do you know how effective it is? Well, to be honest I don’t know. People share posts and give ‘you can always talk to me’ lines but I don’t think people who are already sinking can see the worth of it all. Some just do it for the sake of being in and not for the real reason why awareness campaigns were made.

STIGMA. I think I have the rights to say this since I have friends who got depressed and did something which the society thinks wrong. When you’ve been through hell and back people will brand you as weak. Did you had the urge to harm yourself? Had suicidal thoughts? If you did then it’s okay. I’m no way urging everyone to do those things but do you know why I said it’s okay? It’s because it was done in the past and we can’t do anything about it but to be with them and listen. We always say we are there to listen but sometimes listening is not enough. Sometimes people just want someone who can understand them, who they can talk to without lecturing them of all the things they wrongly did as if they had a choice aside from being sad. People have different coping abilities and it’s just a matter of how and when, you can’t spoon feed a process they can’t work with because it might break them even more. I think the reason people opted not to share is because some will think they are weak and knowing people tiptoes around you or watches over you in case you break is a big stab of confidence.

Be there and trust that your friend can make it through it all. You don’t have to teach her how to stand up and tiptoe around her because she know how to do it, it’s just a matter of being there in the background and not treating her as a fragile glass even after she totally got herself together.

PRESSURE. I had this shower-thought sometime last year about craziness. I remember the story of Vivian, a mentally challenged lady who always have a notepad and a pen and roams around the town while scribbling, and according to the stories she got crazy because she’s too intelligent. I had a question after reminiscing her story; is it her intelligence or the pressure of being intelligent?

Today, in our society if you are intelligent people expects too much from you. Good grades always connotes to being successful and I think that is somehow unfair. Sometimes people expects too much that you can’t even know if it’s still your plans or you are just now conforming with the society because it is what expected of you to  do and to be. I think being intelligent won’t make you crazy, it’s the pressure of being intelligent that can break you.

When people expects too much the only thing you can do is either find a way to break the invisible rope or satisfy them.

A pressured human being will then be mindful of his/her action and in the process they’ll forget how to risk. They’ll be afraid to risk because of the potential damage it might do to them if they failed.

And in that process, they already start failing and losing some of the happiness they once had.

DESERTED. I personally believe that being alone is not being lonely. As a sometimes-introvert I find peace and joy while enjoying my alone time whether it’s in the mall or inside the corners of our room. Recently I had a get-together with a circle and I realized that unlike other people I don’t hate being alone. I hate that people think that I am lonely during my lone time because that’s when I feel more lonely, because people starts telling me that I am alone.

Being lonely is not being a lone wolf, sometimes you get lonely in a sea of crowds.

I’ll just leave you with this line I read from a quote that I used as a twitter cover photo that I think no one notice when I felt lonely months ago: Lonely is when you have nobody to say that you are lonely.