In today’s blog post our guest blogger, Stacey Mensah, discusses depression and very powerfully shares her personal experience with us. Get involved in the discussion and please do leave a comment below for Stacey.

Today’s blog post comes in somewhat of a sombre note. The topic we’ll be discussing is mental health, but more specifically depression. Many see this as simply a word, unable to comprehend the intensity of such a thing. Some, ​however, have experienced the feelings of hopelessness and darkness that come with this condition. Depression, whatever that may look like is real, you may not be able to understand it but it’s there lurking in the background. Coming from an African family but also a Christian one, my perception of mental health has always been an interesting one; and when I had depression as a child my mother was not quite convinced. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing with you, my experience of depression and my mother’s perception of it and what we have both learned from the experience.

The World Health Organization defines mental health ‘as a state of well-being; of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ Going on from this, depression can be understood as a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. This typically affects how you think, feel and behave. This could lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. This topic has always been of great importance to me not only because I’ve experienced this, but as a society, I feel like it’s so easy to focus on the outward appearance. If you’re smiling, then everything must be ok – surely. If you ask someone how they’re doing and they reply with, ‘I’m fine’, then all must be well. I have found that in the past this has not been the case at all. Anyone who has been around me for an extended period of time will know that I have a tendency to frequently ask the questions – How are you feeling? What are you thinking? How do you feel about that? And no, this is not because I’m a maniac who wants to get inside your head. It’s because I know it’s far too easy to hide your negative emotions and to some, in the end, this does become destructive.

I experienced depression from the age of 11 until the age of 20. I know I don’t have the condition anymore as I don’t have that persistent feeling of sadness. Although I do realise that depression does not have an expiry date, everyone does experience it differently. This post is not about telling you how we all experience the condition but rather encouraging you all to not be so eager when it comes to labelling or formulating certain medical conditions. One size does not fit all. During this period, I experienced intense feelings of loneliness, rejection and just overall darkness. The interesting thing however is that though I have always had my family around me, but that didn’t matter at the time. I was mostly inwardly focused, focusing on my own feelings – exaggerating my feelings of negativity and isolating and marginalising my positive emotions. They did not matter. I would always focus on the negative. This would be accompanied by 3 am phone calls to family members about how everything I did in my life was so wrong. The more than occasional bursts of tears would follow and just general misery. Although I was deep in the pits of depression I never did seek professional help. I didn’t want to be labelled as damaged or different. This was, of course, to do with the stigma of depression in society. I can talk about it now because I can look back at that time and think wow. I’m glad I went through that because it made me a stronger person and I’m able to empathise with people with mental health issues. It also brought my mother and me​ together. Here is what she had to say:

‘When you had depression, honestly, I felt helpless. I didn’t know what to do. I was always worried about what you were going to do as you were quite unpredictable. The only thing I could do was pray for you and answer those 3 am phone calls. Although you do mean everything to me, I had to understand that there was only so much I could for you. At the beginning, it was incredibly difficult as I just thought you were being dramatic and didn’t want to be put into certain social situations. After a while, though I learned to listen to you and from there we just had to work through it together.’

To describe depression as being a rough journey would be an understatement. It’s not easy. Some people have to seek medical help for it whereas others do not. Everyone is different. Families and cultures deal with it differently. The key thing that helped me during this time was having a strong support network – made of family and friends. What are your views on mental health? Comment down below or on our Facebook page and let’s open up the discussion.

See you soon x

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The Lake Foundation would like to say a big thank you to Stacey for sharing her experience with depression, we hope that through her experience you have gained some insight into this condition.

For more information about depression you can visit Mind, Rethink Mental Illness and Croydon Drop In