This author muses over the fact that some of what is called depression may be the results of common human afflictions. Loss, bereavement, failure, unrequited love and other common experiences. This may be so but some folks experience a degree of suffering that is out of the norm that may in fact need the assistance of a psychiatrist or therapist to work toward recovery. Her point however is worth noting. We do seem to rush to the use of a medication to cure what ills us when it may not in fact in the end be “all” that we need.
BBC News Magazine by Mary Kenny is an author, journalist and public speaker
“Is sad so bad?
Cases of depression have grown around the world. But while awareness of the illness has helped lift the stigma it once attracted, have we lost touch with the importance of just feeling sad, asks Mary Kenny.
Looking back on my own reasonably serene childhood in Ireland during the 1950s, I recall quiet murmurs about people who suffered from “nerves”. I remember hearing that a neighbour – a well-to-do woman whose larger house and smart appearance was rather envied in the community – had had a “nervous breakdown”. Although when I repeated this to my aunt and uncle, with whom I was living, I was hushed up with a peremptory word of censure. There was, clearly, something slightly shameful about a “nervous breakdown” and one didn’t speak about it.
I can see now, though I did not see then, that these were hidden incidents of depression among family and neighbours. But the stigma over depression, or even mental illness of any kind, must have added to their anguish. How times have changed. It is an accepted truth, in our time, that depression is an illness with a global reach.”
