Let's just cheer him up

Let's just cheer him up or cheer her up, thats what we say often times when a friend seems sad. Then its been 2weeks, 4weeks, months never a smile on his face, begins to act strange and we start getting a bit worried "we really need to cheer him up" thats what we say. We can see he seems sad but we ignore all the signs that point out that it could be a liitle more than just him feeling sad.

I recently realized that depression is not something we Africans take seriously, more often than not when people display signs of depression we tend to think we can make it go away by cheering them up. We take them out, buy things for them try to amuse them and get them out of the funk they are in, none of it works. Even when their characters change and we really beging to worry, we are mostly thinking "ahhh its spiritual oh, how can somebody be behaving like this?" Now i'm not disputing that it could be spiritual but hey if it is shouldn't we make sure they seek the required help?

Nobody really takes depression seriously or seem to understand how someone could be so "sad" that they'll decide to kill themself.  Its so selfish, how can he/she not think of his/her family, how can he/she not think of his friend, all the people that care about him/her. We seem to forget that depression is a disease, would we ignore someone with cancer or any other terminal illness and say just walk it off or lets just give it time it'll get better? no we would not we would send them straight to the doctor, monitor their treatment and make sure they take their meds. We should realize depression is no different, these people too should be taken to the doctor, placed on meds, be monitored and given psychiatric help.

Personally i think its really sad that anyone has to loose their life due to depression ok not loose their life, -it wasn't stolen- take their life just out of plain ignorance, not ignorance of their situation, but ignorance of its severity and consequences. Everyone deserves a fighting chance for their life.

Rest in peace to the young one that is no longer with us as a result of this disease, it is very very sad, despite all the help everyone around him gave, tried their best to make it better, no one realized it was more severe than they ever imagined. He jumped in front of a moving train.