Depression

Long gone, I hope, are the days where people think depression is a sign of the weak.

Ooh no, these days it is a sign of being strong too long, highly intelligent (the curse of the genius....), or as my sister said in some cases it is called responding normally to an abnormal situation. I used to confuse depression with suicide.

The two are different and although not necessary mutually exclusive it is possible to have the former without the latter, and ironically, perhaps, the latter without the former. Either way for something that will affect most of us in some way or another the stigma still, I think, rides high. Not as high as it has been in the past, but high enough. May it fly low.

Finding help in the darkness seems to be a struggle just as living with it is.

In order to access my email with yahoo I sometimes notice adverts. Today I came across this one and I like it. I like the raising awareness of depression and mental illness. Once in the loop recognising the signs seems straight forward but it's the 'what to do about it' that can be hard to come by. I quite like this article as it says 'don't bottle it up, tell someone close to you how you feel' which coupled with one of the symptoms it quotes 'Loss of self confidence and self esteem' shows what a double edge sword this can be.

It isn't only up to the sufferer to speak it is up to all of us to have ears to listen. Even to those not close to us I guess. The article