Depression and suicide. These are the two words that are unavoidable in the mouths of people in the modern world.
Nowadays in Zambia, everyone is depressed and suicidal!
Do you want to know what is confusing about all this? You can’t tell who is faking it and who is being real.
How do you tell, though?
You can’t.
But what you can do is to be there for everyone you know who claims to be in their darkest times.
Nothing is more comforting than having someone who understands and wants to be there to listen when you are going through darkest time of your life.
Everybody goes through a hard time, true, but not everyone knows how to deal with it.
That doesn’t mean those who can’t deal with it are weak. No! they are very strong. They just need another person to remind them of how strong and special they are.
I know of a person who once told me I was seeking attention. My respect for that friend subsided as soon as he told me that.
There’s a difference between seeking attention and really being suicidal and it is not in the way the two differ in meaning.
Being suicidal comes when your mind has convinced you that you cannot do this anymore. The taking your own life part happens when you listen to it.
Let me tell you of a world most people don’t know exists but does. This world is the one I call the UNREAL.
This world is the kind that depressed people live in and I have lived in it for a long time and you have no idea the struggle.
The thing about this world is that you can’t tell whether you are dead or alive. You feel like you are among the living but you are not one of them. Scary huh? Now imagine people have lived like that for years.
In this world, you see darkness when others see light. LITERAL DARKNESS.
In this world, tears are your best friend because sometimes, crying relieves the pain.
There are so many things I can say about this world: the issue of hopelessness, sadness, heightened emotions of any kind (love,anger,sadness etc) and losing the will to live.
In this world, you would want to be happy but your mind can’t let you. It constantly reminds you that you do not deserve happiness and you won’t make it through.
The mind is a powerful weapon. More powerful than any part of us, I can say.
For normal people, they can easily control what they think about, but for depressed people, they really do not have much of a choice. Their mind chooses for them what to think about.
Such hell on earth.
Now, imagine if your mind controls you and you wake up depressed and hopeless one morning, you can simply let your mind convince you to end it. Yes, just like that.
I hope you somehow understand why some people commit suicide yet you were laughing with them an hour earlier. It’s sad really, but it shouldn’t be this way.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel.
I know it’s hard to get there, but it is not impossible.
Step by step, start controlling your mind.
You do that by using your heart.
Your heart loves comfort. It loves being around the people you care about. It feels better like that.
Your heart loves being given hope even if your mind says otherwise.
That’s why some people go for therapy to help deal with their depression.
If you allow people to tell you things that touch your heart positively, you’ll be making progress.
Trick your heart into believing there’s hope and it will get used to the idea, and your mind will have no choice but to let you believe what you want to believe.