Your Thoughts On…Depression
The percentage of university students that struggle with depression in this country is something that always alarms me. How can all these once seemingly very happy students at school, who have everything to live for, be suddenly contemplating death? It upsets me greatly.
The sad truth is that depression is very high in young male students (I write here from a male perspective), and friends constantly ask what can be done to help people in such a situation. I wish I could give you a straight easy answer, but I cannot. However, I have been there and I can tell you what worked for me.
Last summer was the lowest I have been spiritually for a long time — depression is something that I struggle with. Girls are much better at dealing with it than us lads. They are prepared to talk about problems, and stay away from the wannabe machos. Us guys keep our feelings to ourselves.
Depression is an illness, and it is very easy to criticise someone who is depressed, but is harder to be the person who is there to help that same person. Because there are so many students at our university who have a day to day struggle with depression, some might even be your friends. They need our help, not our criticism. And we can do this by listening to their issues and encouraging, just like God does to us. He listens to us and he puts the right people in the right place at the right time to help — this can be us.
I sometimes feel that my relationship with God is all one way, I pray for His help and for His forgiveness. But this helps me greatly. I think we can help our fellow student by being those ears tocomfort and encourage each other. Simply by being friendly andwelcoming to each other you can make a massive difference.
I guess what I am really trying to say is that you are not a bad person for having problems with depression. God loves you, whether you know or you don’t. He loves us all the same. No matter if you believe in God or you don’t, He does not stop believing in YOU.
As you may have noticed, this is a new feature. We’d like to continue it, so if you’d like to send us your thoughts on a topic of your choice, please email us at submissions@christis.org.uk. It doesn’t have to be long — in fact, we’d prefer it to be fairly short.