Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again… When Simon and Garfunkel wrote this song, I guess depression was not so common.

Now, everybody is suffering from depression one way or the other on different levels. If not you, then maybe someone close to you. Of course, it is the suicide of Robin Williams that has made us think of this disease over again. It is the contaminant of our modern times.

I call depression a darkness that one is drawn into. It is a dark well you fall into and you go down and down until there is no light or oxygen left around you. When you are depressed there is no taste in life, no reason to live, no love, no joy and no drive left to seek help or get cured…

I spoke to a young person close to me who is suffering “successfully” from depression. I say “successfully” in a bitter sense because he is absolutely suffering, though at the same time fighting it, seeking treatment, trying several medications, and suffering from side effects. This young man described depression as “a dark feeling that builds inside you. You take no pleasure from anything. You feel like you will never get pleasure any more, even if you do the things that you used to enjoy. This feeling peaks sometimes and it even affects your decision between life and death. You want to throw yourself from a high place…”

He recommends any form of activity to his peers, some kind of exercise… He wants them to know that even in cloudy weather, even if the sun or the stars are not seen, they ought to know that these clouds will eventually move on… “Do not close yourself to others. Cling to daily matters. Go, mingle with people; walk among them. Always remind yourself that there are other people going...