The great ‘depression’

World Mental Health Day: The black shadow keeps rising and once grown enough, it swallows you up.

The black shadow keeps rising and once grown enough, it swallows you up in one big gulp. You no longer remain.  It strips you of the good, the laughter, the love, the passion, the life. Instead it fills you up with black empty space. The person that you were before it took over becomes but a memory; a memory of the good days when you still felt alive, when life was worth living, when you still had so much to offer. It takes you deep into the black hole where you listen to the silence, feel the chill of the shadow and the ear-piercing intensity of blackness.

The aforementioned is symbolic for severe depression. If stuck in the black hole for too long, it could take away everything you have to offer. According to Dr Saeed Athtar, psychiatrist by profession, “depression keeps you from going forward. It makes you feel like there is absolutely no hope. When there is no hope, you obviously are not motivated anymore. And if one does not deal with depression right then, it’s dangerous. Because when you are not motivated, you lose your will to live at all.” But here is the flipside. When you are somewhere deep within the black hole, you are in a better position to concentrate more. At that point in time, you are able to solve complex problems of life that you previously were not able to. How you may ask. When you have to walk from point A to be point B and the path is rocky and full of obstacles, it takes you very long to get to your destination. And at times, you sometimes get so absorbed in overcoming the obstacles that the aim of reaching your destination changes and you end up forgetting what you were in it for in the first place.

But when you are in that black hole, there is nothing. There is nothing else between you and your thoughts. It forces you to dive into your thoughts and understand and own each one. And at that point, there are no obstacles. That could be because of how depression takes away your enjoyment from social activities, interest from the outside world. At that point you do nothing but think about your problems in life.

Depression is in no way a good thing but a quarter of all adults have experienced depression at one point in their life. It might not be easy to avoid it but once faced, could be taken as a form of transformation or more like a transition. And since when did transition ever become easy and smooth? It is supposed to be painful. But with pain, comes joy. With life, comes struggle, with light comes darkness. It is all a process of evolution.

“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” we have all heard this before. But in the case of depression, holds true. It teaches you to be more resilient. It helps you see life from another light. And since you are so lost in your own self, in your own world, it forces you to admit and accept all the problems in your life which is the first step towards bringing about a change. It is the ticket to an elevated sense of being, to a new, higher level of awareness. Dr Sumera Safdar, psychiatrist said, “If given the right medicines, psychiatrists can help people suffering from depression channel all their feelings into something positive.” It also sprouts creativity. A girl who requested to remain anonymous, aged 22, said, “I was depressed for the longest time. After a while I got tired of complaining to myself about life so I started writing. I wrote some of the best poems I have written so far. I had no idea I had this gift. And this happened seven years back and I still continue to write.” According to Hamad Khan, a member of an underground band Spoonful, depression helped him understand music better. He said, “I was able to compose music in a way I couldn’t before I got depressed.”

This in no way means that depression is something to celebrate but given the circumstances, if many of us are suffering from it, its  better to take it in and throw back something much bigger than what you got and come out stronger and better. Every year on October 10 the world celebrates Mental Health Day, whereas in Pakistan it is commemorated by holding seminars, workshops, awareness walks etc, with no practical long-term initiatives.  Taking this day as an opportunity we should at the very least think about all the things that are bothering us and affecting our behaviour in one way or the other. This day should be dedicated to introspection. It is much needed. Time can probably heal just about everything but when it comes to mental health, the more you ignore it, the more it deteriorates. Fight it.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2010.