For years now I’ve struggled with not only depression and the medical implications of it, but also the social stigma of being classified into a group of people that are called overly emotional, inappropriately disenfranchised, and a chore to be around in general. I know so many people who feel depressed and are hesitant to seek treatment because they feel that it would classify them as being freaks or having something wrong with them, there is such a stigma attached to taking a Prozac in the morning.

But the more I think about it I find it confusing that more people aren’t depressed in the society and peer groups that we are all a part of in this day and age. We’re raised with these basic notions of right and wrong, fair and unfair, etc, and the longer that an individual lives in this world the more likely they are to feel disillusioned with the fact that everyone isn’t going to have a chance to fight Lord Voldemort in a battle for the world with clear opponents, the enchantment Sleeping Beauty is under is a coma and we’re not all going to grow up to be movie gods, or rock stars.

The western culture is contaminated, it’s rife with the notions of throwing a friend under the bus for a promotion, for the priority of immediate happiness rather than lasting relationships or consideration of if a decision is the least difficult or the least wrong.

Can anyone really be blamed? Is there truly anything wrong with having the desire to prod on your own success? After all it’s something implicit in existence, the idea of continuing your own success.

Now this lack of correlation between idealistic values and ambition is truly a sad thing, because most people in the world today are just trying to succeed in any way possible, and after all, the values learned in daily life are infinitely more bold than those in Disney’s classics. And when almost everyone in the world is reminded on a semi daily basis that ambition is prioritized over empathy it’s no surprise.

Having contempt for this truth is not only a natural reaction for those raised on Nickelodeon and the Lifetime channel, but also I find it shocking that more people don’t fully embrace how difficult the contrast can really be.

So how do these emotions of discontent manifest? So many different ways but the one that I see most often is depression. To feel helpless, lonely in crowds of others that have accepted the rat race ideology and embraced it with vigor. So is it weak to feel generalized depression, does it make you a freak, something to be looked down upon? Or does it make you a human being, an analog individual in this increasingly emotionless digital world? More than anything, I want to stress that those undergoing depression are not alone, not freaks, not helpless. There is help out there for everyone and the longer you wait to take advantage of the resources available to you as a GVSU student, the farther you are from something different, something that can be worth it.