Causes of depression

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 300 million people of all ages suffer from depression and women are more affected than men.

There are many factors responsible for depression; there is the social media. The internet is revolutionary and wonderful, it can also be cruel. It forces us to focus on other people and forget our own awesomeness. It causes us to compare our lives with others when we do not meet societal standard.

Childhood trauma is another factor; some of us have had to deal with abuse, molestation and even bullying. Unconsciously, we had followed the trends of talking down on ourselves and feeling unworthy of care. There is also the environment, where we grew up in or that we live in influences our perception of the world. It imposes gender roles on us by saying women have no other place than the kitchen.

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Another factor is past mistakes. I can remember when I once got denied in a talents audition. I shut my mind to other opportunities because I was scared I was going to get denied again. I thought I was less of what everyone else was doing and just concluded that I could never be as talented or creative as they were. It got to a point where sleeping became difficult. My mind was always occupied with things that never existed. I kept creating scenarios in my head that could cause me to cry. I knew I was not me; I cried to bed every night.

The symptoms of depression include inability to concentrate, feelings of guilt because depression begins with you blaming yourself for all the things going wrong in your life and the world in general; fatigue, unintentional weight loss / low appetite, insomnia/hypersomnia and recurrent thoughts of death.

To curb depression, what you need to do first is to explore where the negativity is coming from; you must be a hundred per cent true to yourself. Now, you must make up your mind and caution yourself when you notice you are feeling numb. Look at yourself and speak words of affirmation. You cannot recover from depression by being just positive. You must be intentional about it.

Victoria Oyebande,

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