We’ve all come across terms like “anxiety” or “depression” in the span of our lives. We have even grown accustomed to using them in as common terms to describe our feelings. I often hear friends say “I’m depressed” when they are feeling down, or “I’m having a panic attack” a day before exams, and all I can think back in reply to these statements is “you have no idea”! While people all over the world take these terms lightly, they shouldn’t be. Anxiety and depression are among the most common mental disorders in the world, and they are more than just feeling sad or tired or nervous. The reason I’m saying this is I’ve seen it first hand and it’s not your every day mix of emotions. It turns your whole life around. Your mind creates its own prison and there’s nothing you can do about it because it’s not a choice you make, it’s not an emotion that you can alter, it’s something you are just dealt with; an illness.

One of my closest friends was recently diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder and Depression and she says and I quote, “Anxiety is a murderer that has killed every peaceful optimistic cell in my body. My friends and family tell me to stop worrying or to cheer up, what they don’t understand is that it’s not something I can switch on and off or control, I’m living in a prison in my own mind and that’s just the way it is. In me, there’s a dark hole full of unexplainable sadness and fear that’s constant, no matter how much light I shed on it, it always finds its way back. It causes my body to react in ways I don’t understand. No matter how much sleep I get, I’m always tired. I get so frustrated when people tell me to think more positive, or it’s a state of mind that I can change. They are really ignorant of how it feels to a person going through this. Telling me to be happy because other people have it worse doesn’t help; it’s like telling someone that’s happy to be sad because others have it better. I’m at war with myself on a daily basis and if I ever stop fighting, it will take over me, consume me and leave me beaten and injured on a battlefield called my life.”

We often jump to the conclusion that mental disorders like anxiety or depression aren’t real. We label them as feelings without truly understanding what these terms really consist of. We brush it off, showing no compassion to those suffering. The truth is, anxiety or depression can be summed up as a chemical imbalance in the brain that can cause a variety symptoms and future afflictions. It is an illness, just like diabetes or heart disease. We cannot place some on a pedestal because we can clearly see what’s going on and truly comprehend it, while disregarding others simply because we think, “they’re crazy” or have no idea what takes place in the human mind. Some things are not what they seem to be on the surface and one would have to dig in a little deeper to discover the truth.