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0 By Taylor Tara
You cannot explain it. Why? Because we do not want to listen. All we hear is blah blah blah.
To a non-believer it is an excuse for someone to be lazy.
Someone who just enjoys complaining.
A pain in the arse.
It makes us walk in a different direction, or avoid eye contact and making conversation.
I was an eye-roller!
How do I know that? Easy, that was me, those were my thoughts and my beliefs, I was a real eye roller.
Never having suffered depression or even tried to understand it, I chose to ignore it. That was so much less work. Not seeing the signs in others. Living in denial of it even being an illness called depression, an illness with a thousand different forms.
Having lost three friends over the years to suicide driven by depression, it still had not sunk in. I have always been a caring person, just not in the area of the unknown.
Still holding a heavy heart of the way I used to think. Forever wondering if I would have seen the warning signs in my friends. All beautiful people, left way too soon. That I will never know.
Going back now from several years ago, I have had an assortment of people being brought into my life.
For whatever reason, step by step I started to see it with open eyes. An awareness of how raw and real it was. An illness creeping through society.
Listen, understand, have empathy
Why am I writing this? In a hope that others who followed my previous thoughts and judgements may also see through it. Not place it in the too hard basket. In the hope you will also look around with eyes wide open. Feel in your heart and mind. Listen, understand and have empathy.
Your loved ones, family, friends and work colleagues, they all need your support. The battle they fight is huge and gut-wrenchingly lonely. I have seen it with my own eyes. It is not pretty. Do not give up on each other because it seems the easy way out.
It’s for those with depression and waiting for acknowledgement, to those who show acknowledgement of finally understanding it. It is a long hard road for both sides. Be aware this holiday season and make someone’s life a little more bearable.
Taylor. Xoxo.
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
