End the stigma. Are you with me?

I was diagnosed with depression for the first time in 2016. Prior to that it had never occurred to me that *I* could be depressed. In all honesty I always thought something major had to happen in one’s life before they could be depressed. Something like losing both parents in an accident, or one being in an accident that left them disabled and the likes. Something major. So the idea that I could just be depressed in the middle of my everyday life seemed very unlikely to me.

Infact, I went to my aunt to vent about the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing in my life and how suddenly everything just felt like a chore to me. I listed all the other things I was battling with and she listened well, like the trained psychologist she is. When I was done she asked me if I knew anything about depression. I told her what I knew; that something major had to happen in one’s life for them to be depressed.

She corrected me and then diagnosed me with depression. *jazz music stops*

How could *I* be depressed?! I had just started a new job at one of the world’s top management consulting firms, I had great friends, I had just bought a car, I had my own place and my family loved me. My life from the outside seemed GREAT. What did I have to be depressed about? Nothing.

Well, I was wrong.

About five months after the diagnosis I landed in hospital this time for major depression. Yea. I got a bed in a hospital ward. For depression. Unbelievable.

I stayed in the hospital for a week while I waited for a bed to become available at a mental health institute. I moved to Life Riverfield Lodge, a mental health facility in which I stayed for ten days.

I won’t lie. Everything that happened during that time was all a blur. I didn’t understand what was going on.

…

Anyway, I survived then and I’d go on to survive two relapses. My boyfriend’s passing has me feeling like the world is on top of me again. Once again I have to accept that actually I live with this mental illness. Sometimes it’s more pronounced than others.

This post has been in my drafts since January 2019. I started writing it because of the passing of a former colleague who died by suicide and I’m finishing it now because the love of my life also died by suicide. The unimaginable happened.

I was trying to talk less about my mental illness cos there is more to me than that but the bosses at work have been asking me if I’m getting any help through this very difficult time and I find myself revealing my little “secret” each time.

I didn’t want to disclose it at work because of the stigma attached to it but I realize now that by intentionally hiding it I am perpetuating the stigma. I want talking about mental illnesses to be as normal as talking about headaches.

I am battling but I know I want to be saved. And I want you to know you too can be saved. ♥️