Being physically ill is something that our society accepts as something that we usually can't control. A person with a broken leg will be given medical help, given a set recovery time and people acknowledge that this person has an ailment. But there is a taboo in our society around mental illness, and mental health in general.
Depression among young adults is a huge problem, yet very few adults are prepared to talk about it with these vulnerable people. The school system likes to brush over it, pretend as though mental disorders do not affect some of the students in their school, as if not speaking about things such as depression, anorexia and other mental illnesses will make them go away.
Opening a dialogue about mental health is so vital, and could save so many lives. Breaking the stigma about mental illness being a sign of weakness is so vital, and it will mean that more and more people will feel as though they can talk about what they're going through. Giving people the information on how to receive help is vital, and will help so many people who are currently fighting through illnesses alone.
While this is hard to say, and slightly hard to talk about, I want to share my story with mental health concisely because I think it may emphasise the need for this open dialogue about mental health.
Just over a year and a half ago, I suffered from depression. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't just feel sad some of the time, because depression is more serious than that. For just under a year I felt completely alone, trapped in my own skin, worthless, and many more emotions that I couldn't fully understand myself. In the darker times, I found myself fantasising about my own death, and while never harming myself physically, my thoughts have psychologically damaged me to this day.
Learning to love a body you grew to hate is harder than it sounds.
And I didn't tell anyone except two friends who caught me breaking down in the bathroom one day. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't even know what I was feeling, and looking back I know now that was suffering from quite serious depression. I didn't tell anyone because I thought I could help myself, which is eventually what happened. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to trouble people, I didn't want to disrupt their lives with my problems. Most of all, I didn't want to seem weak.
Through various methods, finding ways to slowly climb out of that pit of depression that I never thought I could get out of, I found myself at the point in my life where I am now. Even now, I have moments where I feel like I may fall right back down and never get back up. Some days I wonder how I could have felt so completely worthless and alone. Everyday I try to find out what triggered my own depression.
I had never talked about mental health with anyone before, not my parents or my teachers. It was something to only be talked of under hushed whispers, something that had seemed so alien to me before it happened. Something to happen to other people. There were points in which I felt like my own depression wasn't validated because nothing in my life was going wrong for me, I realise now that depression is valid no matter the cause.
I'm a strong person, I know that. I can't help feeling that someone who was in my position who wasn't as strong would have caved in at some point, never to see the light that shines so bright on the other side- to feel what recovery feels like.
Being there for someone when they need you most could save them. Mental health is a serious problem. One that needs to be addressed.