When I describe my depression I realized I was always using analogies because I could not describe it for what it is. This got me thinking; why can’t I truthfully describe it If I feel it so deeply? Then I decided to describe any happy feelings and the words whether genuine or not fell off my tongue without a second thought. This vocabulary of ‘happy’ adjectives is second nature to us. Then how come I cannot say the same about ‘sad’ adjectives ? Society has created a long lasting stigma that any person with depression is seen in a negative way by those around them and hence it is not spoken of or discussed in an open forum like an educational platform. this education is where a child begins to learn his or her vocabulary. No wonder we cannot describe what we really feel inside because from as young as we can remember we were never taught these words as it was and still is frowned upon. So here are adolescences and adults sitting with these feelings of emptiness and sadness that they we can’t fathom to explain because with all the knowledge we were taught we never learnt how to acknowledge all of our feelings. Unable to describe and unable to speak the feeling grow and grow inside of us until it consumes us, impacts our lives, our health, our relationship and yet we cannot fully understand it.
