The depths of depression

Depression can be a very tricky thing to deal with and that's mostly because it can be difficult to detect sometimes as it shares similar signs with sadness or moodiness. A lot of people don't even know they are depressed, they usually just pass it off as being sad or having a bad day but the major difference between it and regular sadness is that it is persistent; depression is basically sadness on steroids. It is like how you have headache on one hand and the stronger, persistent form of it which is migraine on the other hand.

One other way to identify if someone is depressed aside from just persistent sadness is that they suddenly lose interest in things they once enjoyed. It can be subtle but an observant person can easily identify these changes in their friend. Depression is a mental disorder and it can happen to anybody. Luckily for me, I haven't dealt with it personally but I have a friend who went through a period of depression when we were still in the university.

We were in the middle of our industrial training (my department posts all their students to the same place for IT) when she suddenly became ill and had to end her IT early. I later heard that she had a condition that may likely require surgery in the worst-case scenario but for the meantime, the doctors were giving her drugs to handle the problem. Our IT was in 2 phases; the first one was at a farm in the same city as the university (Benin) while the other one was at an institute in another state (Lagos).

Most were excited about going to Lagos for our IT, including this my friend but because of her health condition, she could no longer go. She had a lot of things to worry about; the surgery, the likelihood of pausing her education, money for the hospital bills, and a lot of other things which I didn't know about. It wasn't long and she fell into depression and became a shadow of herself. It was very painful for me seeing her that way, so I helped out in my own way by representing her at the institute in Lagos, since she couldn't be present. I helped in filling out her log book, filling out forms and signing important documents on her behalf.

I also called her frequently to give her updates on whatever we were doing at the institute, including doing video calls to show her some interesting things I saw there. I don't know how effective all these were but at least I was able to make her laugh on a few occasions, especially when I told her stories of the horrible experiences I had in Lagos. I was helping her to handle things on the academic side and told her to leave that aspect to me while she focused on her health. Slowly but steadily, she got better as time went on.

Fortunately, her health improved without the need for surgery and that greatly boosted her mental health. She later sent me some food items which she said was an appreciation gift from her mom for all the help I offered her. The one thing I learned from that experience is that it takes just one bad event to throw you into depression. We were in the middle of our IT, having fun and she got ill, a few weeks later I couldn't even recognize her anymore, always sounding weak and tired of life whenever I called her. Well, I just thank God she got better in a matter of months, many people have had to deal with depression for years before overcoming it.

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