Depression is a cruel disease/condition that can affect anyone easily. It is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems.
It’s so difficult to describe depression to someone who’s never been there, because it’s not sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it’s that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling.
Depression is real guys and we need to reach out to our colleagues, families and friends out there. That guy who just changed his behavior or character, that Pastor, that parent, that husband, that brother, that sister… Ever thought of your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend welfare after you left? If you get a response like ‘am Okay’, ‘am Fine’ … it is important to take a step and go talk to this person face to face in a conducive environment and listen, and give a shoulder to cry on where need be.
Some common signs and symptoms of a nervous or mental breakdown are: feeling anxious, depressed, tearful, or continuously irritable, feeling helpless, hopeless, and having low self-esteem, withdrawing or avoiding normal social situations.
Please consider some of these points.
1. Stop ignoring that friend who suddenly went broke after loss of job or business. Reach out.
2. That single mother playing independent is not fine. Reach out.
3. That jobless drunk brother who has been branded “useless” by your friends and family. Reach out.
4. That beautiful woman who you think has it all. She is not fine. Reach out.
5. Your girlfriend who suddenly became lazy, withdrawn and rude. Reach out.
6. Suicide is not selfish. It is selfish to remind a depressed person that suicide will only transfer the pain to others. There is no pain in death. Depression seeks that peace. Reach out.
7. No. A bottle of whiskey is not reaching out. Reach out.
8. And Paybills after suicide is HYPOCRISY. Reach out to your friend’s, listen and talk to them.
Personally I have gone through depression but unfortunately friends and families did not recognize it. I have endured pain and loss. I have felt broken, lost, hurt, lonely, rejected, defeated, confused, useless, pathetic but I overcame. I have known hardship, and I have felt lost and alone. But here I stand, trying to move forward, one day at a time. I will remember the lessons in my life because they have made me who I am. Stronger. A warrior.
Anyone who has read my books – Behind the scenes, Dare not Quit and Overcoming all odds – knows the motivation behind the books. I have written alot on overcoming not because I don’t know pain but because I overcame.
Sometimes your friend could be falling apart and you never realize it.
Please reach out to friends, families and colleagues who would be going through depression.
If you are depressed, please hold yourself together. There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.
Please click to watch my You Tube Video on Overcoming All Odds
