Depression is fast becoming a self-indulgent cop-out

When the doleful dance of despondency is the name of (your) game, trillion dollar industries will feed and grow around it — and laugh all the way to the bank. It might just make sense to count your blessings

One of the more fashionable conditions these days is depression. It is assessed that over 60 per cent of people suffer from bouts at some point of their lives. In some societies where it is on an endemic scale the figure rises to 80 per cent. Like with Rome, just about all roads can lead to feeling down in the dumps.

A friend of mine has been so diagnosed. I don’t know which doctor has told him this but he swears by it. He is enjoying the sensation because it gives him a sort of cop out and an “I told you so” approach to others. Much in the way that a hypochondriac with an ailment would say, “See, I told you I was sick.”

Now, we all know that trauma, loss, financial constraints, debt, job fragility, even a crappy boss in the workplace or bullying in the classroom can be terribly exhausting and can lead to low self-esteem.

Sometimes even good news can hurt. You win a lottery and you can get deathly afraid that something bad will happen to balance out your good fortune. Overnight millionaires can actually go to Stockholm and check into a clinic that deals with those who receive instant wealth.

Health problems when diagnosed, can bring a rage to the effect of ‘why me’ and generate a sense of futility.

It is an unending litany of reasons and all of us are susceptible to the suggestion that being depressed is sort of integral to residing in the territory called life.

Between the psychological barrage and medical science linking up with self-styled pundits feeding us curative bromides, those who do not suffer from depression are almost made to feel guilty for letting the side down.

You would think that being buoyant and bouncy was bad form. Think of it. Nobody has written a book about how to be sad or feel low as an antidote to constant sunniness. Who knows, there might be a market for it. After all, everything has an equal and opposite reaction. So if exploiting your misery is a multi-billion dollar market, why shouldn’t there be a financial killing to be made in the reversal of fortunes. I can almost imagine the blurb now: Tired of winning all the time. You need a dose of depression: 10 quick ways to feel down and out. Then the bestseller book: How I threw away my fun-filled life for eternal gloom.

You might think I jest but let me tell you a secret. The reason why depression is so easy to sell is because it is a delightful cop-out. You can just clutch onto it and stop trying. And once you have found refuge in the abyss, it is like an old shoe, so nice and comfortable. Now that you have elected to be depressed, people understand your plight and you do not have to make the effort. It is like you have decided to get out of the rat race, told the world to stop

You win a lottery and you can get deathly afraid that something bad will happen to balance out your good fortune. Overnight millionaires can actually go to Stockholm and check into a clinic that deals with those who receive instant wealth

whirling so you can jump off, still the treadmill, all because you are justified, right, you are depressed.

Take my friend. He is rich, his wife does not see him as a disappointment and actually loves the blighter, he hasn’t got cancer, diabetes or high blood pressure, his staff is quite fond of him and the Midas touch perseveres. So, since he has this almost ‘one card left’ perfect hand dealt to him in life, he has to have a negative. All this good stuff was driving him crazy so now he is undergoing tri-weekly therapy sessions for the blues and thoroughly enjoying being unhappy.

And the reason why I am making light of a serious malady is because very little has been written about this aspect of our vulnerability to this alluring scent of dismay. It makes us ungrateful and discontented and we do not realise it but we stop counting our blessings.

Whenever I hear someone suffers from ongoing depression I want to ask them to take stock of their life and see if they truly deserve this self-indulgent swim in manufactured sorrow.

A passing shower is certainly a given in every life. Even the occasional downpour. But to constantly rain on your own parade is a very futile thing to do.

Making you depressed is such a major conspiracy. The pharmaceutical industry thrives on it. They never cure you, they just keep tasking your money to keep you in a state of perpetual unhappiness. Antidepressants now ‘plunge’ to a $17 billion a year industry. Then you have psychiatric and psychological counselling which kicks in at about $1 trillion to combat anxiety.

You can pay up to Dh1000 to have someone tell you what’s wrong with you.

Mental health is now flourishing as a whole separate entity and turning into a parlour game played by the affluent. In fact, sometimes you wonder if it isn’t a guilt thing in that they have so much, they need to offload their good luck by denting it with despondency. See, we are not doing so well.

Let me repeat that I am not denigrating the genuine sufferer or indicating that depression cannot be crippling. I am only referring to the exclusive dimension of turning it into a sport or setting it to music and forcing oneself to dance to this dirge when you could be dancing to the light fantastic.