Depression Has A Face But You Don’t Always Notice It!

You are engulfed with sadness. And you become a warrior, at war with your chaotic mind. You try brushing off negativity but it keeps on getting high.

Trigger warning: This post contains details of suicide and depression that may be triggering to survivors and people suffering from it. 

Depression has a face but you don’t notice it! It is real.

When it happens, you don’t wish to discuss it with people.

You try but you can’t get yourself to do things

You are engulfed with yourself, with your mind. And you become a warrior instantly, on war with your chaotic mind. You try brushing off negativity but it keeps on getting high.

Someone knocks your door, pings you, calls you and you instantly become non-responsive to calls and social meetings. You start avoiding people. They call you antisocial, tell you ‘Are yar ye to plan se backup karleta/ karleti’ (You could have at least told us to keep a backup plan) but what they don’t realize that it is because you were depressed.

Depression has a face but no one notices it until and unless the person takes their own life. Some people are able to triumph over it, but some lose their lives in the process of depression.

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And it is so common even among young people now

I know depression has become so common even in kids. When we were kids we didn’t even know what depression was, at least, I didn’t. 

Now I see a 13-year boy updating a status regarding mental health. That is why it is the peak time to nourish physically and mentally well.

Apart from personal reasons, bullying, humiliation, has increased chances of depression. Going through depression is not easy, you don’t want people to hear you but to listen to your unsaid, unexpressed feelings without speaking.

You don’t wish to consult a therapist but still need therapy.

You seem to be losing yourself

Sometimes you have insomniac nights or days of hypersomnia but people around you don’t understand. They’d often label you as Kumbhkaran and laugh without realising you shed tears from dusk to dawn.

You are not able to take criticism easily, you lose yourself once they start mocking you. They don’t understand that in the process, you have begun losing yourself. That you don’t wish to leave blankets, or even take a bath, to get dolled up. And that your appetite starts changing.

Watching yourself in a mirror doesn’t give you confidence or boost your self-esteem. You have aspirations in your eyes but no inspiration left to catch them.

Again, you wish to be heard, but no one listens as you wish.

Things only seem to worsen for you

Things start becoming worse day by day, life stops being in a way you wished and you are torn into bits due to personal reasons. Sometimes you are not even capable of sharing them with your closest.

However, you don’t stop, you start trying to weave your torn pieces back to normalcy. Sometimes you win and other times, you end up giving up on life when life gives up on you.

Trying to kill yourself is not the easy, it takes a lot of things happening in your brain and life. I am probably not the one to judge how the mind becomes when you stop thinking about the faces that want to see you happy next morning.

But maybe you can be kind…

Maybe it’s a process that makes a person so hopeless and worthless that they end their lives without bothering about their future which has potential to be better. It’s high time for us to realize and notice people around us who are battling mental health.

I know it’s not easy to be kind to others all the time since you are always trapped in your self and in your worries. However, it is not impossible to take care of closed ones who matter before the day when you have to say they are gone soon, they were a good person.

This note might save your life one day and years later you will smile back, you will realize if you don’t give up on life, life won’t give up on you.

Picture credits: Still from short film What’s Wrong on YouTube

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