Acknowledging The Crushing Weight of Depression

In a society where individuals are consistently being told to never show weakness, always keep fighting and never stop pushing regardless of their both their mental or physical state lies and overwhelming force slowly eating chipping off the invisible we've used to protect ourselves from reality. A lot of people fight this invisible war silently only to end up in a devastating state with nothing but emotional scars as proof of their efforts. The power of depression is an overwhelming force that slowly creeps into people's lives without necessarily displaying any noticeable signs hiding behind forced smiles, pretense and even the everyday business of life.

In the past depression was never recognized for the potential danger it poses going as far as accompanying it with weakness or just straight up referred to as the outcome of witchcraft. Times have passed, society has evolved and one would expect that since depression is now public knowledge it will given the attention it deserves. However despite its recent popularity, this topic is still being treated as an anomaly that should not exist and even if it does, it should only be discussed in secret especially when it involves men. More attention needs to be channeled towards tackling this problem that is obviously not going away anytime soon. Avoiding it won't do any good as silence seems to be one of the major factors fueling it's performance so society must talk about it more not hid away in some feeble imaginary fortress that'll only come crumbling down one way or another.

The major reason people who suffer from depression are too scared to even talk about what they are going through is negative profiling attached to any form of mental condition. Till this very day (especially in Africa), the moment an individual admits that he/she is depressed, they are automatically regarded as being Lazy, weak or even just seeking for some sort of public attention. Knowing that this is the kind of treatment that awaits anyone going through phase, a lot of depression victims prefer to hide what they are going through instead of sharing hoping that they are strong enough to handle it on their own until it eventually passes which rarely happens because this approach only makes it grow from bad to worse.

Another problem is the fact that proper education on depression is heavily lacking. Too many express symptoms of depression without even understanding what it is so instead of facing the actually problem for what it is, they either ignore it or just straight tag it as something else. This only helps to create some sort of stereotype that depression only affects certain people and much effort is not needed to combat it so all one needs to do is walk out of this state the same way they got in.

I used to belong to this category and would constantly wonder how people get depressed in the first place. This made me very insensitive towards this particular topic without even knowing that I was already falling deep into one already. It didn't take long before I was eventually overwhelmed and started to slowly withdraw from people and everything around me. I eventually became a shell of my former self and the crazy thing was I did not even know what the source of this was. Luckily for me I eventually got help from a friend who was ready to listen and help as she understood what I was going through. The journey to getting better took over a year but our collective efforts were totally worth it.

Talking about depression does not make you weak or inadequate, it just shows that you are admitting that there is a problem that needs to be sorted out. It helps to raise awareness, create hope and also show people fighting this battle that they are not in it alone. Programs and avenues where people can openly share their struggles need to be encouraged so that people can become empathetic towards victims and also understand that nobody is exempted from being depressed. If proper steps are taken, societies around the world will eventually evolve until they get to the stage where they can become proactive towards depression by easily spotting subtle signs stopping it's momentum dead in its tracks.
Thanks.
Ps. All images were generated by Grok