Sunday, March 7, 2010

About Depression

I just want to share a few thoughts I have about depression...

One time I woke up feeling light-headed and I felt that the surroundings are too bright for me. It was about 7am in the morning and I am an out of school youth. My parents decided to put my college plans to halt and let my sister graduate from vocational school. Anyway, I didn't went to college after all. I also finished vocational courses in IT in an obscure school near a market place. I had this feeling that something might escape my head and kept wondering what could be it. The world to me seems like in total shambles. I didn't remember how I ate breakfast and how I was able to take a bath and do my morning rituals. I really felt that I have to grab on to something because I felt that something is about to escape from me or my head. I sat down for a while and my parents did notice that i wasn't the regular boy they know who will go someplace and waste time.

I do remember that for the last few days, I am looking back at my life how I did screw up my high school grades and I really was a rebellious idiot of a son of a traditional (or old fashioned) household. I realize what mistakes I made and what I could have done better. I sulked in my bed for so many hours thinking what I could've done. My mind is also busy thinking what does a boy like me doing in a rural place wherein before, we had a nice house in the middle of nowhere in our province where nature is my playground. We left the place and settled in a small apartment wherein the kitchen, living room, and bed are at all the same place. Everyday, I saw my former schoolmates going to their school somewhere in Manila. I happened to talk to some of them. Some of them went to PUP, MAPUA, Adamson etc. And I am just a bum burning my ass at home. My scores back in HS will not even grant a baranggay captain scholarship so that my parents won't worry of college fees. At first I thought it was fun doing nothing but stare at the streets and put scores on every pretty girls passing by. It was fun for a few weeks, but then it was getting stale. My old guitar's tuning pegs broke so I have no way to entertain myself or even get some other skills. I didn't like basketball, yep never liked it at all. But I am the perfect errand boy of my home. I do all the chores in our house and help with the small business my mum is running. I did develop a good physique because I have to fetch water several blocks from my home and I carry huge gallons of plastic cans going to and fro with 6 or 8 of these heavy cans about 3 times a day. I do enjoy a few adoration of local girls because of my youth. But then it came to me that these things became routine. The same people I see passing by are becoming boring. The people around thought ill of us for some stupid reasons. The local girls either moved away to pursue their studies or got married .Friends randomly come because they are busy with their own lives and I was left for myself having nothing and no one. And I started to miss my days in school or rather I miss the interaction with other people.

So there I was, with my regular chores of fetching water and at the back of my mind, I know that I am about to loose my sanity. I know that at that time I was feeling sorry for myself and denies that I have a problem. I was never vocal about anything at all and most of the time, I keep things to myself. At that time, my vision became blank. I hear my surroundings but it sounded like a loud blur. I felt the chilling water on my fingers and hear it beating inside the plastic can. And at the back of my head something woke me up. My vision went back to normal and my mind went back to reality. I felt the water in my hands and flushed my face with it for a few seconds. I thought to myself, I am still alive, healthy and young. What am I doing feeling like the world already ended? I felt a surge of energy through my muscles. As I filled the last can, I pushed the cart containing 8 water containers to our home and started pouring the contents on a huge industrial cans 2 at a time. I felt like I am on top of the world at that point.

That time during the evening, I have spoken to my parents like I never spoken before. I knew there was a flash of surprise in their eyes but they did carry on with our conversation. We were laughing and exchanging stories. They even told me that I will be going back to school any time now after my sister's graduation. Everything seemed different that time. I felt this depression when I was about 16 or 17 years old.

Depression is real and it could hit anybody no matter how young or old you are. The story I just told you is short and there is a lot of details I purposely left out. But what I wanted to share is that you can dictate what you will feel everyday. Mistakes are a part of life. Big or small it happens. Sometimes some mistakes are negligible but sometimes you will have to suffer the consequences. Some medical studies says that depression could be caused by lack of certain vitamin or nutrition groups or even lack of physical activity. But of course, they also acknowledge the power of the human mind. Your mind can dictate the functions of your body. What you feed in your mind will either nourish you or destroy you. When you are feeling down and everything seems too dull, you need to reach out. You can't fight depression alone. I wasn't able to cope from it all by myself. I needed my family and friends for me to open up. I risked a few trust issues but did a lot of help to me. But coming out of depression starts in acknowledging that you need help. That you are not happy or you feel lonely or whatever gloom you are in. It's starts with opening up and start to think positively. You could probably avoid the stuffs that might have contributed to your gloom (e.g. I listened to too much negative themed music that time so I ditched it) . And the important thing I instilled in my mind that all of us do have purposes in our lives. Butterfly effect tells us that a soft flutter of a butterfly wings could cause a world wide disaster. Your actions too could have a major impact to someone or something. You'll never know that the minute you wasted your time moping of some senseless things, some good thing was not happening because you were to busy being an idiot and selfish. Yes, depression could also be because of selfishness. You are not alone. There are like billions of people moving around this world and by God, He didn't wasted his time creating you just to waste it on your own selfish moping.

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