TIMOTHY TIAH
Abeautiful wife, two lovely kids and a booming career. Becoming a successful co-founder and CEO at the age of 23, many envied and looked up to Timothy. To some, he was truly living the dream life but little did they know, it was anything but a bed of roses. We spoke to Timothy about his battle with depression and how it has affected him.
Can you share with us your experience with mental health? What have you been dealing with personally?
I don’t really know exactly when I started having depression. It’s possible that I could have had it for years before I was properly diagnosed but I just brushed it off as me being emo when I had my breakdowns. The important period for me was sometime in early 2020. It was over dinner when I was talking to my wife about it and I said, “I don’t think I have depression. I don’t feel sad. I just feel like I can’t feel joy. I used to feel joy when I buy something, eat something good or achieve something... but now I don’t feel it at all”. Upon hearing that my wife replied: “That’s depression”.
I didn’t believe that. I always thought depression was about being sad so I googled ‘can’t feel joy’ which I thought was a very original way of describing how I felt. The search results proved otherwise. On the first page was articles about depression and a link to Befrienders, the suicide hotline. That’s when I finally accepted that I could have depression. I later then went to see a psychiatrist and she eventually diagnosed me with Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder.
How has it affected your social life and career? Did you open up to any friends or family about what you were going through?
I’m a lot better now but when it was at its worst. I would break down and cry sometimes for no reason, which was not normal for me because I never really used to cry a lot. Rationally I knew that I had many things to be thankful for but I just couldn’t feel happy about it. I felt numb or indifferent. I never really had trouble getting out of bed nor did I lack motivation but I did sometimes find myself staring into space. Because I couldn’t feel joy, every day work stress or anxieties tend to hit me much harder. I felt hopelessly imprisoned by the lens in which my life was being lived through a world where everything went from colour to black and white. A world where I couldn’t find joy in anything I did̶ which then made me wonder why I even did anything to begin with.
Yet I didn’t really believe in mental illness. I believed that being happy was a choice until I finally sat down with my psychiatrist. She explained to me how depression happens because of an imbalance in serotonin in our brains. I then went home and started researching the science behind depression and I realised then it isn’t a choice. I was diagnosed with Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder.
I eventually shared it with a few of my family and a few of my friends. They were largely supportive but then I felt anxious about people finding out about my depression. I was worried about the stigma attached to it. A few months after my diagnosis, while on a journey to reduce my life’s anxieties one by one, I decided to open up about it on social media. To tell everybody what I had, so that I no longer had to worry about people finding out about it. Everyone was supportive in their own ways.
What is life like for you now?
After more than a year of treatment, I’m in a much better place than before. I would stop myself short of saying that I’ve overcome depression because I know that the battle is one of attrition. Staying out of depression is a journey that takes time and I’m cautious of it returning to what it was before.
The stigma around mental illness still exists, even with all that’s being done to build knowledge and understanding the importance of treating it. Why do you think that is?
I think as a society we’ve made very good progress in terms of education and understanding it. It will of course never be enough until nobody ever has to go through depression. Having experienced it, it’s something I would never wish upon my worst enemies.
Do you have any words of advice for people who might be struggling with depression or anxiety?
In my own experience, my only regret was denying it for so long and not getting treated sooner. Having depression or anxiety is not a choice but getting treated is.