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Showing posts from September, 2018

Sadness is the emotion, Depression is the disease

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I remember when I first moved to the US, I had a friend who I didn’t know was suffering with depression. I thought he was just weighed down with general issues of life, plus depression wasn’t a much talked about topic back home in Nigeria. He didn’t look sad when we hung out - or at least when he actually agreed to hang out- but when we got talking, he would tell me what was wrong and things that he was struggling with at the time. Trust me, it took a whole lot to get him to talk. So, I just thought he was sad and I would say all the nice things you could say to someone who is sad: Don’t worry, God has a purpose for everything, Let me know how I can help, etc. But I knew that I didn’t truly understand what was going on. In my head, he was just sad and soon, he would “snap out of it”. I noticed he was losing weight and looking more and more pale, but he would still muster a smile whenever we saw him in class, if he would even make it. Long story really short is, after some