Shengliver’s Note: Perusing the journal entry, I was greatly alarmed. Meanwhile I felt honoured by the trust the teen put in me. Hopefully my words may have made some difference to him. May he come out of the blues sooner.

It was not until the mental problem weighed upon me that I appreciated the significance of my rock-solid friends.

Weeks ago, after Covid forced us to switch to remote school mode for the second time (August 2020), I was cast under the spell of some toxic feelings due to some personal issues. At the worst, I did not eat properly for days on end. Dad finally took me to the surgery, where the doctor refused to give me a diagnosis. Instead, he said that I was in a wrong unit and instructed me to go and see a psychiatrist. Though drowning in anguish, I did not dare to visit a psychiatrist, for I was afraid that I could not steel myself to face it all.

My best friends all have their own individual lives to take care of. Yet anytime I am desperate for company, they timely turn up by my side. They cannot share my pain in a literal sense; nor can they figure out what my inner struggles are about. Seeing me struggling, however, they never fail to be there for me.

I still cannot get a complete grip on my own emotions, and I break down at times for no reasons whatsoever, but I feel a great deal better than I did a month ago, during which time I could have been in tears all day while my suicidal tendencies were getting overwhelming. It was my buddies’ company that made me feel a bit normal; it was their physical presence that helped me reorient myself to reality; and it was their unswerving support that pulled me back from the brink of fall. Their generosity has stopped me from entertaining thoughts of suicide.

I did not understand depression very well. I used to believe it is no more than a psychological thing. Because it struck me, I learned first-hand that depression is more than psychological. It is 100% physical. My own body still slips out of control when the blues set in.

Yes, I am still on the way out of the darkness, although I can make out a dim light beckoning at the end of the tunnel. I have to admit it’s hard, very hard.