Confession - Coming Out of Mental Illness

Generally, people might assume that I am normal

I have a good life

I am a happy go lucky person

I studied psychology in my home country (Indonesia)

I received scholarship to study postgraduate (MSc in Global Mental Health) in the UK

I established organizations that focus on mental health issues (pijarpsikologi.org & Youth Empowerment Studio)

I can listen to other’s problem, and able to respond it wisely

I have a good academic life. In fact I was the most outstanding student in my faculty

I got some achievements which not so many student can achieve it

However, silently I suffered from dysthymia / mild-chronic depression for years, probably since I was 12 years old

I got twice episodes of major depression which cause me mentally broken

Emotionally exhausted

Physically fatigue

Spiritually lost

I used to think about suicide a couple of times, well… almost every day

I did write some goodbye letters for my family and best friends when I was really ready for death

I am now still alive, and will not end my own life (I’m not sure though)

Currently, I dedicate myself to write as much as I can about depression and mental illness

It might not be a common thing, but I feel the compassion towards myself and towards others who suffer in silence. My writing will help me to understand myself better. My writing will also, hopefully, help other people to understand more about themselves.

Depression will be the leading cause of disability worldwide according to WHO’s prediction^1,2,3,4. However, society in my country have not understand yet about this debilitating illness. I will write most of my articles in Bahasa Indonesia because my main purpose is to help the people in my country to understand better about mental health issues. In fact, there are already tons of good article about depression in English. I am writing this in English just to make sure that my friends from other countries understand what is going on with me

I am a psychology graduate and an MSc student in global mental health and I have depression for years. I come from a developing country where only 30%⁵ of the youths are able to enroll in higher education. I think, my privilege to study psychology in the university is a “debt” that I need to give back to the people in my country. Through this post, I launch my new personal blog svadharma.netwhich will share my personal experience and knowledge about depression and how to overcome it.

I have 35+ sessions with psychologist, psychiatrist and psychotherapist in total and I am not ashamed of it. Having emotional turbulence is just like having a cold or hay fever; we need professional to help us. Just like the stigma about HIV that kills more than the HIV itself, stigma around mental illness will kill people who suffer in silence more than mental illness itself. I open up so those who suffer in silence will be able to relate and hopefully find a little courage to talk to their smallest and safest circle and further seek help to professional. In addition, for those who never experienced depression or any kind of mental illness, my writing will make people understand their closest ones and able to empathize to those who are feeling depressed.

Hope this story will make your world a little better.

Because depression has no face. I always smile to other people around me, but now is the time to being vulnerable and authentic.

P.s. I will have a lot of pictures about my “coming out” on mental health issues, and anyone can use my picture as a resource to educate others.

“It’s okay to not be okay

#mentalhealth

#let’stalk

#depressionhasnoface

#worldmentalhealthday

[1] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/

[2]Global Burden of Disease study - http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001547

[3]Lépine, J. P., &Briley, M. (2011). The increasing burden of depression. Neuropsychiatric Disease Treatment, 7(Suppl1), 3-7.

[4]World HealthOrganization. (2012). Depression: A Global Crisis. World Mental Health Day,October 10 2012. World Federationfor Mental Health, Occoquan, Va, USA.