My Depression Story. A silent killing pandamic

My depression started when I least expected it. Or should I say I didn't know I was depressed till it was too late. It crept up on me. I wasn't even aware that it was happening. By the time I woke up in hospital, I didn't even know what had happened. The depression got so bad, I had mental breakdown and started hallucinating and I fell off a building while at it. 

I woke up in a hospital and was diagnosed with major depression. It's easy to fall into it because society does not want to talk about sadness. 

Besides I never thought I'd get depressed. I thought it was a white person disease. 

I studied psychology and most of the case studies we did were on white people. So I'm not racist. The only Botswana case I came across had something to do with the family of the person saying he was bewitched. But in Psychology it was closest to Dissociative Identity Disorder, it had nothing to do with depression.

When I look back I remember that I stopped doing the things I love. I loved watching TV and movies. Everything TV I loved, but somehow I stopped to watch it, and my life deteriorated. 

Then I stopped reading. Then I stopped listening to music. I stopped living. I became a shell literally. Dead man walking. Then my mental health just started deteriorating. I just wanted to die. 

I remember walking into a pharmacy  and wondering what I can eat to kill myself. But I was never brave enough. I heard that dying it painful so I was too scared of the process of dying. If I could transfer myself from alive to dead without pooping on myself, I would have. People had told me horror stories about the process of dying so I didn't want people to find me surrounded by feces at my own doing.

So I decided I'd rather die unawarely one day and not by my own hands. It didn't stop me from fantasizing about death though. It was all I thought about. 

How was I expected to live without my mother? 

It was stupid and impossible, I used to think. 

Who was I supposed to make proud? 

9 years down the line I've accepted she's gone. Not having a confidant is hard. There is no one I can truly be myself with. I can't call her up when I visit countries because of my work. Sometimes I don't check in at airports or at hotels because there is no point. Sometimes I want her to check up on me to see if I'm alright. I want to be someone's primary concern. I can't buy her things and give her the comfort she never got when she was busy taking me to the best schools.

I used to call her up at every little single disruption in my life then she'll talk to me and the world and mostly my mind will balance again. Sometimes when I think of the things I called her about, I think she must have thought I'm crazy. She probably wondered how I'd survive without her. 

9 years seems like a lifetime right? For me it seems like yesterday. The days are more bearable but I sometimes I loathe the moments lost while I was depressed. I believe I would have met the one by now and had 2 or 3 children.

But the process had to happen, right? 

And God knows everything anyway. If I had to go through this to find this(God) then it's ok. 

And then there's Mother's Day and people will be there showing off their mothers. Haha. I know they wouldn't be exactly showing off but yo! sometimes it feels like that. I'll be there thinking look at you showing off your live mothers. 

God had everything to do with my healing, though I studied psychology, I never thought the anti-depressants could ever work for me. Maybe that is more for the Psychiatrist part, but I knew there was something bigger that could heal me at the time and God did. I found him 5 years ago and it's been great. The thing my mother told me before she died was that I should find God. I was raised in a Christian home, but I never knew Him personally like my mother did. 

James 5:14 
James 5:15 
Psalms147:3 
When you are depressed it's hard to get out of the whole. But keep looking for help. Because there is light at the end of the tunnel - this is a cliche but it's true. When I was depressed I never thought I'll ever be happy again, but I am. And I would have missed all these wonderful moments had I committed suicide.

Photos from a Google Search.