{things that matter}

Some of you may already know this but back at university my thesis was on the issue of suicide. 4 years of research and over a 100 pages written on that matter. You may find this subject very daunting and appalling, however, in a lot of ways it’s one of those aspects that differentiates us as humans from all the other living beings on this planet. The understanding that we are all mortal and above that, the ability to put an end to our lives anytime if we want to.

In the perfect world where everyone’s happy and content, we’d like nobody to have such thoughts. In reality, we’re all fighting our own battles everyday and have different ways of handling it.

Depression by itself doesn’t necessarily mean having suicidal thoughts. For some people, no matter how bad life gets, just the very thought of killing themselves is something completely unacceptable and repulsive. For others, though, it might not even take that much to arrive to such decision.

I believe that it could be prevented. Not in all cases, but even one makes a difference. But here’s a thing - all these “lifelines” are pretty useless when it comes to the actual prevention of suicide. 

One of the things people with depression do is they withdraw themselves from social life. They don’t reach out. They feel meaningless and don’t want to be a burden. They feel forlorn by family and friends. And when being left one on one with their own thoughts in a dark room, they’re not gonna google phone numbers to talk to someone they don’t know and whose opinion wouldn’t matter at that point. They would already feel betrayed by those whose support actually matters. 

Over 10 million people in U.S. alone had at least one major depressive episode with severe impairment last year. Don’t expect these people to seek help themselves, most of them won’t.

Reach out to your friends who are going through hard times. Don’t wait for them to reach out. Do it first. Be a good human. Because you just never know. And when you do, it could be too late. 🖤