James Hayton is a blogger that I follow that writes about writing your PhD thesis. He goes throught the process of writing your PhD thesis/ dessertation and all the associated process in a manner that is so real and spot on to what I feel in my daily undertakings as a PhD student. Today, his topic was depression.
He talk about how depression was his demons and angels. He said that they were his angel because it drives him to continue to do better than before. Depression was his demon because it also caused him to be unhappy with his success. Most of all, he talked about how depression was not something that people are openly talking about. As a matter of fact, we constantly oppress it despite that it is a common sickness, and can happen to anyone. He explains that people don't openly discuss this health problem because of the stigma that the society place upon such illnesses.
Depression is a mental illness. As mental illnesses goes, it is not the the norm. We live in a society. Regardless of whether you come from collectivist or individualistic society, mental diseases are not the norm, and places the individual in the outgroup. We live in a society, so we want to belong to the society. As long as the society sees mental diseases as something that we should not talk about, then regardless of the type of culture you come from, depression will have the stigma of a disease that we should not talk about. However, depression will still exist, though we choose not talk about it. It will not go away just because we choose not to talk about it.
In Malaysia, not only do we not talk about depression, we blame depression on demons/ black magic that someone has cast on us to destroy our success. I believe in a logical explanation in everything that happens to us. Does black magic/ demons exist? Yes, demons, black magic, and dark
mystical powers exist, if you believe in it. I think some cases and most cases of changes in a person is a symptom of depression. Like any other society, it is easier to blame on the demons because that theory is more acceptable to the society then to acknowledge mental disease. Even the most intelligent and educated minds that I know of in Malaysia believe in the demons that cause these changes in a person who seems to be a very normal and successful individual to go into a state like depression (but not depression?). Yes, they are demons and they are within us. It is our demons and we need to confront it and acknowledge that to fight this demon you have to talk about it. And for the society, we need to listen to what people with depression have to say. Depression can happen to anyone. Even people who are very successful.
