Depression? Psychiatrist!

I remember the year we entered a new century. It was going to be 2000. I was still working then and I remember thinking this century will be about the human brain and human emotions. The medical developments will be in the region of the brain and the hormones. Maybe they will even finally discover a connection between the right brain and the heart because those two organs seem to hold the secrets to our body’s emotional ebb and flow. 

I told that to my friends, who looked at me as if I had lost my mind. But I told them, no, I had not gone crazy, I was just being a visionary. Over time they would see that I was right.

Today in 2012 or 12 years later I had lunch with a dear old friend. We commiserated with another friend who was described as looking “very gray” because her daughter had just committed suicide. I wonder, could she not tell that her daughter was clinically depressed? I asked. My friend shook her head. How many people know that? she said.

Well then maybe it’s time I wrote about it again.

Depression is a feeling of extreme almost paralyzing sadness. You are the deepest shade of blue. You are miserable, sometimes you don’t want to talk, you just want to brood and sulk until one day it gets so bad you want to kill yourself. Some people cannot sleep for many long nights. Others cannot awaken from a very long sleep. Some people eat too much and cannot stop, others cannot eat at all or eat so slowly it drives the family mad. There are many signs, different with each person but there is one thing that you as a parent, a sibling, a mate or a friend should worry about. You should be concerned about how long these feelings last. If they last more than three days, then it’s time to take him/her to a psychiatrist.

If you think that a psychiatrist is just a doctor for crazy people then you are ignorant, uneducated and downright stupid. I’m sorry to be so blunt but I have to say it to shame those who think that way. In truth, psychiatrists are doctors who study the brain and the emotions and who help people who have disorders in these areas. If anyone has disorders in these areas we must admit to them. It is nobody’s fault and there are cures.

Early this year I received texts from a young mother who found everything wrong with her life. I did not know her but she continuously texted and finally said she was planning to kill herself. That gave me my first clue. This girl was clinically depressed. That’s why she was talking about suicide.

We communicated back and forth until I was even more deeply concerned and I recommended that she see a psychiatrist. She said she didn’t know one and she had no money. I sent text to a therapist friend of mine, one of the finest in the Philippines, and asked her if she knew where I could send this young woman to save her. Send her to me, this doctor said.

So I texted the young lady again and told her to go to my friend’s office, learn how to balance her depression, how to master it and live a normal life.

First she seemed shocked that I would do such a thing for her. Then she panicked about getting her husband’s permission and all the other things she felt she had to do to get herself to the hospital. I asked for her name, she would not give it. Ah, okay, I said. If you choose not to take me up on my offer, then I withdraw it. Please find your own psychiatrist but don’t kill yourself. I don’t know what she did but I did not hear from her again. I hope she is still alive. People who are depressed just try to kill themselves —some successfully.

My friend spoke to me about a friend of hers who tried to commit suicide by drinking insecticide. How horrible! Can you imagine the taste of that and the ruin to her insides!   And did he know how hard it will be for his family to accept his suicide? 

In the end, I am grateful that all my children are in their 40s now and they are all still alive and well, though you readers do not know the close shaves we have had and the pain that accompanied all that. But every night I am grateful that all the children are alive and well.

To write this piece I looked up depression in Google. There is so much on it. This shows that we have indeed entered into the field of human brains and hormones. I was right. I am a visionary. Do you have a parent, sibling, mate or child who behaves strangely, who seems to be depressed? Go to Google and look for advice. There is much there. I certainly wish they had so much knowledge in the 1990s.

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