I've never been (Un)happier

by Shaheen Bhatt

Depression doesn’t cause a 103-degree fever or a visible rash; the symptoms are psychological and therefore harder to conceive of as medical in nature. For many who live with it, the greatest obstacles on the road to recovery are family and friends who do not ‘believe’ in depression. The assumption is that if you have a happy and comfortable life, you have no cause for, or no right to, the despair you’re feeling. We ask that a person pay a price before we allow them to hurt. In short, you can’t be depressed if there’s nothing wrong or if you have no real problems.

‘No one understands how I feel,’ is in all probability the most frequently thought and spoken descriptor of depression of all time, and I think that’s because it’s true. No one can truly understand how you feel because the pain you experience is unique to you.

In other words, you can buy happiness off the rack—but sadness is tailor-made just for you.