"Using the word ‘depression’ can be scary but it can also be a relief"Flickr: R Depression

I’d been in therapy for a couple of months, but no one said the word ‘depression’ until last November, when for the first time I understood that I had no idea as to why I was really crying.

My prevailing state had been based on apathy, disengagement and frustration since I was about 16. I spent weeks feeling blank and monotonous, finding everything exhausting and pointless, despising people who demanded things of me and avoiding confronting problems and my own emotions. Cambridge exacerbated this, and provided plenty of excuses for my thrill-seeking behaviour.

But for a long time I never questioned that there was anything wrong. No one treated me differently because no one saw the changes, so I carried on like that, never asking for help because I didn’t think it was necessary, always feeling numb, looking forward to being drunk, feeling like I was oozing through each waking moment. It took someone else throwing an umbrella term at me for my eyes to open.

Every depressive experience is unique, so saying someone is ‘depressed’ will never begin to cover it. But to begin one’s recovery, it can help to be given an explanation for the emptiness. For me, it was an opportunity to forgive myself. I stopped feeling guilty about staying in bed, not writing essays, going home every weekend, and some of the weight lifted. I didn’t feel ashamed to email supervisors to ask for extensions, so my work improved. The rest that I needed became truly restful, and my time away from the intensity of college became more regenerative.

You are allowed to feel cold all the time; to never want to talk to people; to want to hide under your duvet every day and never open your eyes. You are allowed to eat everything or eat nothing; you are allowed to drown yourself in work or procrastinate until the end of days; you are allowed to cry all the time. You’re allowed to feel lonely and hurt when no one knocks on your door to see if you’re okay. But if you feel these things, maybe you should be the one seeing if you’re okay.

Using the word ‘depression’ can be scary but it can also be a relief. It can be an admittance that you need looking after, and that actually, no, you’re not fine.

Despite the outmoded mental health support available in Cambridge, my experience of discussing depression, therapy and medication has been positive and encouraging: most treat the subject with the respect it deserves. I suppose a small benefit of being at a university with such high rates of mental health problems is that it’s just impractical for it to be a taboo subject. Don’t let yourself consider it a taboo, either. If there’s a problem, that’s okay – and once you recognise it, I reckon you’ll start feeling better.