Today we hear and read a lot of stories of depression that lead people to hurt other people, or themselves, even to the extent of taking their own lives. There are high profiled ones that we see all over the news in both main stream and social media. And there are those, even as you are reading this, that are happening to someone, somewhere, and no one ever gets to know about it. But thanks to social media, even if there are incidents we don’t get to hear about, there is a raised awareness that something like this, is actually happening. That depression is real. And that it’s happening to someone and it could happen to anyone.

Depression, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, is “a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home. ” Symptoms, they say, include the following:

• Feeling sad or having a depressed mood
• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed
• Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting
• Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much
• Loss of energy or increased fatigue
• Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., hand-wringing or pacing) or slowed movements and speech (actions observable by others)
• Feeling worthless or guilty
• Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions
• Thoughts of death or suicide

Without knowing its clear definition, one may not even be aware that he or she might already be going through a mild to severe symptoms of it. I could look back and recall that in the different phases of my life, during those times when I felt that life was not on my side and things are not turning out as expected, I too, had manifested some, if not all of these symptoms. And yes, including thoughts of death.

When you are in a situation that seemed hopeless, like a loved one whom you have devoted your life to has betrayed you, or you might be the favorite target of bullying in your school or workplace, or you have parents who don’t care, or the opposite perhaps that you feel they care too much you cannot live up to their expectations of you, or you might find yourself stuck in a big financial mess and you have no idea what you are going to do, or someone very close to you is sick and dying and you feel helpless that you cannot do anything for that person, or you are the one who is sick with an illness that does not guarantee any cure and if there is, the cost of it would already make you want to just give up and die, or you lost a loved one to death and the grief of such loss has created a void that you have to struggle to live by every single day, or you lost your job, or some business partner double-crossed you and run off with the money you have worked so hard to earn and then you are left with nothing but a tainted reputation with a family to feed and rising debts to pay. Different life stages, different situations, different degrees of depression. These are some situations that leave you paralyzed, with a feeling of isolation from the rest of the world because you feel that nobody would ever understand, that the world will never understand and the pain you are feeling, physically and emotionally becomes too unbearable. The thought of death could be a sweet escape. And then you snap out of it. At least for the lucky ones who do, because by talking to someone, or reading something out of some book, or perhaps an article that pops up in your feed or timeline, or by suddenly getting a change of scenery, or by conscious willpower of diverting such thoughts to something else, you get clarity that the worst situation you are in is not actually the dead end that you thought it was. The temporary snapping out of it does not solve the problems you have, but it does get you out of that desperate moment that could lead to something detrimental as untimely death. It gives you the interval, no matter how thin that line is, to gasp for air that could save you.

What I recall as my own saving grace was how I literally shake my head to shake off the negative thoughts that was dominating my mind. And I pray. I had broken down, crying like a baby in prayers so many times. I have cried in the shower with my tears flowing endlessly as the water dripping off my head. I self-talk, if there was nobody to talk to, I talk to myself and how it relieved the heaviness in my chest.

To surrender to weakness is not an act of weakness itself. It is a mere surrender to our vulnerability as emotional beings and acknowledge that strong as we might project ourselves to be most of the time, we all have a weak spot. No exemption. Even the toughest person has a weak spot. And in knowing and acknowledging our weakness, we gain our strength. Give yourself permission to be weak. And forgive yourself if at some point, you succumbed to your weakness. It is in those lowest points that we come face to face with our own fears, our own demons that try to pull us to that pit of no return. But we know that it’s not really where we want to go. We do not want to be a prisoner of the darkness that has no end. We have the ability to pull ourselves together, to give our weak selves the chance to get up, rise up and work up. To regain the strength that we lost from being temporarily defeated by the situations that caused our depression. It is temporary, yes it is. Because just as all things are fleeting, this one too, no matter how bad it looks at the moment, this too shall pass. I have read so many posts and articles today of reaching out. Yes, allow yourself to reach out to those who reach out to you. All the world may not understand, but there is someone, somewhere who understands. You can look outside, or you can look inside of you. In the depths of you, if you open your heart to receive the power that is in you, the power that heals, that understands, that tells you, all may not be well, but it will be. And yes, my dear friend, it will be because your life matters. You are here because you have a purpose. Just as every sunset gives hope to a new tomorrow, trust that all will be well in the many tomorrows that await the stronger, wiser, more accepting and more forgiving version of you.