“The war on depression is real, is live. Celebrate every day you prevail. Laugh every time you beat this thing”

-Yrsa Daley-Ward

I want to talk about depression. Two years ago I was diagnosed with clinical depression and after having consulted my therapist, she asked me if I wanted to be hospitalized or to go on medication. Like the structural being I have been taught to become in this society – because to show my humanity is a sign of weakness – I immediately refused hospitalization and opted to go on anti-depressants. I was on these anti-depressants for a good six months. For most of the time they made me feel numb and at that time I preferred it over having to deal with my emotions – until there came such a time where I realized that I wasn’t happy. That I wanted to feel rather than not feel anything – or become hollow.

Thereafter I have been off anti-depressants not to say it has not been easy. On some days it takes courage to get out of bed because there are days where, honestly my mind has often told me not to. Depression is not something one can switch off as they please and external situations can trigger it all. The past three days on campus have been filled with protest action for a cause that is justified. I have however also heard a number of people guilt-trip other’s for not attending the protests, mass meetings and plenaries currently underway – without for a second trying to understand why.

To guilt-trip someone because of their “lack of attendance” if the suffer from mental illness is not only ableist but also quite insensitive. I know a number of my friends and close people who put their mental health in harm’s way last year during the march to parliament, the presence of police on campus and the brutality to which students were met with. The discussion on mental illness during times of protest is one that is left out many a times and statements like “there are always casualties in the revolution” are normalized and thrive during such times. To expect people to attend protest action without a clear understanding of the nuances that come with mental illness whether it be anxiety, PTSD, depression or OCD comes with serious ramifications. This time has taught me that as people we need to learn to be more understanding rather than judgmental - or putting an “x” on an invisible attendance register during times of protest. People have different means of dealing with their health and their absence does not mean they are anti-black, anti-woke, anti-struggle, sell-out or anti-revolutionary for that matter. It does not mean one is not in support but if someone with a mental illness can wake up to face today like they have on the many other days where the mind said no - one must then understand what it would then mean to expect them to place themselves in a situation of protest.

As people the most important thing one can do is to not view every person’s circumstance in your own world view instead of attempting to understand and ask someone, “how are you doing?”. In all of this may we not forget our humanity as a black people towards one another. May we learn to sympathize, support and understand rather than to judge and divide - in a world that already tries to divide us.