Are You Battling Depression?

You're not alone.

- Shiham Hassanali

It’s like you can’t breathe, anxiety grips at you like a vice, and you feel like you’re about to have a full-blown panic attack. Seated at your work station, you glance at the clock: 11 AM. Ugh, six more hours to clock out. Somehow, you need to regain control of yourself. The thing is, you haven’t slept well for almost a month, and your appetite has begun to plummet. You’re making careless mistakes at work and don’t find joy in the tasks you once did. The smallest of things brings you to tears, and you constantly feel a sense of hopelessness. Sound familiar?

Depression can occur at any point in your life. Many estimates indicate that one in five of the millennial generation experience on-the-job depression; millennials are also often pegged as the most stressed generation to date. It’s possible that, at some point in our lives, we’ll all grapple with depression in varying degrees. The good news is that depression can be managed—it just takes a little time.

Yashora*, 27, left Colombo and moved to New York to pursue a career change. She knew it would be a stressful period—starting a new job, settling into her first apartment, making new friends and learning her way around a city far away from home would not be easy. But, she never expected just how challenging it would be, and the anxiety that came with re-location proved to be too much to handle. Life was hectic and quite unlike anything she had ever experienced, and she felt like everything was falling apart. She stopped eating, lost weight and always felt exhausted. Feeling that the move had something to do with her predicament, Yashora went to see a psychiatrist. She was diagnosed with depression, and was prescribed an antidepressant and medication to help with the anxiety. She also saw her therapist regularly. Six months later, she bounced back and was slowly being weaned off her medication.