Am I Depressed Or Am I Just Lazy?
Words by Ra Syahirah, Illustration by Chiharu Ichibashi
Mental health has been making the news in Singapore. In a 2018 Straits Times article, Dr Vincent Ng, the chief executive of AMKFSC Community Services, stated that there was a 42 percent increase in people seeking help (either for themselves or their loved ones) from their mental health service over the past two years. Even though more Singaporeans are aware of or having conversations about mental health, the stigma of mentally ill people still remain. Like the assumption that people with depression are just lazy or that people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia are dangerous. Even people with mental illness(es) may stigmatise themselves - because it’s easier to accept the fact that your mental illness is burdensome instead of being kind to yourself and finding ways to healthily navigate around your illness.
Many times, I find myself wondering if I’m having my depressive episode, or if I’m just lazy. I wouldn’t consider myself a morning person, though I like being up at 6am and getting things done. But then there comes a time where I’d wake up and never want to get out from under the covers until 5pm. And then it happens again the next day, the day after, the day after that, and so on. It makes me wonder if all these times, I was just pressing snooze on being lazy and only now, my body caved in. There are also times where I’d look around my bedroom in disgust at how my clothes cover my bedroom floor, the chair, even my study table. I keep telling myself to do something about it but no matter how hard I try; a louder and bigger voice tells me to leave it and continue curling up in bed. And that’s what I’ll do. No matter how hard I try to do something, I just can’t.
It even gets as ridiculous as not eating. See, I’m someone who cooks regularly but when my lows hit hard, I end up just not cooking which leads to me not eating. Ordering in food or getting takeaway could be a solution if only I weren’t vegan. I’ll end up just eating unhealthy foods like fries or bags of crisps. I’d hate eating unhealthy foods, but those are my last-ditch attempt to keep myself from starving while also not trying to burn a hole in my pocket. Else, I’d be content with just not having to eat and continue hiding under my blanket.
I blame myself for a lot of things whenever my mental illness gets the better of me. I blamed myself for not wanting to meet any of my friends when I was going through my lows. Hell, I even blamed myself when my romantic partner left me because they thought my emotions were too unstable for them. When in reality, my bipolar that got the best of me. It’s good to take responsibility for your actions instead of blaming it on your mental illnesses. But people with mental illnesses tend to be too quick to take the blame instead of realising how their mental illnesses affect them mentally, emotionally, and even physically.
Though we have progressed into having more awareness of mental health, we have yet to understand how to address the stigma of mental health. Having awareness does not change the fact that such stigma still exists.
So, am I depressed or am I just lazy? Well, some days I’m depressed and some days, I’m lazy. And there’s nothing wrong with either of them. What’s important is that I take responsibility for my actions rather than blaming it all on my mental illnesses (or my bad habits). At the same time, I also have to be more kind to myself and allow myself to “slip up”. I’ve suffered my longest depressive episode of 2019 recently (it lasted for about two months), and even though it’s not the first, I know that it certainly won’t be my last. There will be more of these in the future and maybe they’ll last even longer. Until then, I have to constantly remind myself to be kind and forgiving to myself while at the same time be firm and myself accountable in certain situations.
Ra is a 23-year-old queer genderfluid writer whose writing revolves around their life experiences using the most readable and accessible language for all to understand (and hopefully resonate and find comfort in).
Harumaruchi is an eggshell breaker by day, cocktail heartbreaker by night who currently sips her way into solo living life in the rising sun. She just moved out from constant monsoon summer to be with her birth place. Her moniker, ”harumaruchi” is a clever wordplay of her name, combining “Maru” which means circle. Sometimes she is also known as the “monorail” that says “yes” twice. Website: be.net/harumaruchi.