Magnus McFaulds
Lantern Staff
For college students, depression is more and more prevalent. Something once thought to only affect older people is now an epidemic in young people. As college students, the pressure can be piled on every day, from class, to work and to social lives.
Jake Tyler, a Ted Talk speaker, talks about his struggles with depression. The basis of his talk is the phrase that is said a thousand times every day, “I am fine”. He says, “I’m not really fine; in fact, I live with depression.” Tyler speaks about the troubles and the thoughts that go through my own mind, that it feels like you’re the only one living with it, and you must hide it. That when things get dark, there is only one voice left and it says to end it all. Tyler’s Ted Talk is one that I struggled to listen to because much of what he talks about, I myself have felt, “I called my mum that morning, but it wasn’t because I thought I needed help. I thought I was beyond help. I called her because I thought that day I was going to take my own life, and I called her to hear her voice one last time.”
For myself as a 19-year-old, depression is one thing that controls my life. It dictates who I am going to be for the day from the second I open my eyes. Most days, there is a voice that seemingly starts before I can begin to listen to it, a news feed of all the things I’ve ever done wrong with the last line telling me that I should do one thing, die. Depression has led me down dark paths and some that I never thought I would be able to get myself out of, actions that I regret, forced by my darkest thoughts.
Even in 2019, a year where depression, anxiety and mental health are being talked about more and voices are being heard, it is still a touchy subject and people are afraid of the harsh reality of the pain, suffering and heartbreak it brings. It is a subject that we should be able to be open about and not have any stigma behind it. I struggle to even tell my own therapist what’s going on, the struggles I’ve had in the past and how they still haunt me today and try to drag me back in to the darkness of my mind.
Depression is serious, and I chose to write this as my starting point to getting better. I’ve been through countless attempts at ending my own life, and many more where just the thought has crossed my mind. If you are struggling and need help no matter how nonexistent or life controlling it is, talk about it, air it out and seek help. Letting it take over you is not the way to deal. Help is one call away even at the worst times, you just need to pick up the phone and call anyone.