How best can you promote a cause you have no experience with? How can people trust you as a confidant if you have no idea how they feel and cannot really connect with them on the problem you are trying to help them address? I have been asking myself these questions ever since I began this campaign on Depression. For one, I have not been clinically diagnosed, although I have had times when going on was not an option and everything becomes overwhelmingly impossible for me to do. I do speak to a couple of people about it, but that is it. I’ve never seen a doctor about it, and that’s where the story ends for me.

The closest I came to dealing with depression was when I met someone going through therapy after diagnosis. She is on the road to recovery. But it is not an easy one because she can’t openly talk about her condition without being tagged as a nagger, an attention seeker and someone trying to play the victim. Compounded to her worries, is the fact that her mom sees it as one of her teenage dramas, and not a condition that needs medical attention, and makes it very difficult for her.

After all is said and done, I may not be an expert on the case but that doesn’t in anyway undermine the fact that there is so much stigma attached to depression and it is about time we had open discussions about it. And so for the good of everyone, it will be one day and one experience at a time. My questions are legit and they may be the driving forces that will push me beyond my comfort zone to question the status quo and also change the perception about mental health.

Why don’t you get involved? Share your experiences with us by sending them to “Tok2someone@gmail.com”. We will be glad to hear from you.