You don't have depression!

I remember, once while in the park after a long silent walk, I told my friend that I think so that I am suffering from depression. Her immediate reaction was, "Are you mad? You don't have depression, you are just overthinking". I was simply not prepared for this reaction and had become defensive about my statement. She asked me why do I think so, then I told her that of late I just feel like crying anytime for no reason. All I want to do is sleep whole day and do nothing, I just drag my day doing everything without any motivation. A state I don't want to be in, but am unable to fix it. "Is it because of PMS?", was her next question. "How long do you think PMS can affect you? It has been more than two weeks that I had my last period", I retorted. I was getting annoyed and was regretting that I started this topic and now have to justify why I feel depressed. Her probing did not end there. She asked me whether I was having any trouble with my family, or at job or with any friend, and my answer to all of these questions was no. "Then what is there to be depressed about when nothing is troubling you? You just keep reading a lot about certain topics and then overthink. You might be temporarily sad and you are mistaking it with depression", she concluded.

Whether that phase of my life was depression or not, I still don't know. How did I cope with it, I don't remember. But I never mentioned it to anyone post that incident about how I felt. I don't know whether that phase will ever come back to me or not, but currently, I am not in that phase. But today I felt that this incident of my life could be an important message. Reading about Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide has left me in jitters. I went back to his Insta page to check his recent posts, to understand that whether there was a sign which no one noticed or everything was regular. The very latest one was where he was missing his mom. Then in one post in May, I found Sushant trying out a few things which I tried once to 'fix' my life sometime back.

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Of all the various approaches I’ve tried in the last few months, these meta skills have worked wonders with the best ROI of time :) 👇🏻 1. 7 hours of optimised sleep 💤 2. Regular meditation 🧘‍♂️ 3. Writing a journal. 🖊 4. Frequent Exercise 🏋️‍♂️ 5. Optimising digital time 🤳🏻 and 6. Intermittent fasting 😇 Try them, if you will, and share your secrets for upgrading quality of life! #eyeofastorm ⚡️

A post shared by Sushant Singh Rajput (@sushantsinghrajput) on May 4, 2020 at 10:55pm PDT

My point is, everyone says we should remove the stigma around mental health and should seek help, but there are cases where people do not even realize that they need help. Sometimes it gets too late by the time they or anyone else around them realize that they need help.