Tag: depression

  • Break the stigma

    Break the stigma

    I think it was Dr Wayne Dyer who said that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

    This is true both positively and negatively.

    Do you know someone who has a problem for every solution? Who sees doom and gloom at the happiest of moments? Who is preempting a negative outcome despite things going in their favour?

    Do you think they have a mental illness, or have they just been hurt so many times before, that they are afraid to hope for a positive outcome? Are they simply protecting themselves from being let down again?

    This is how we experience life when we finally give up hope about the future, or we give up hope about being appreciated.

    That absence of hope is what causes us to feel depressed. Depression is a legitimate experience of human emotions after we’ve taken one too many hard knocks from life about something important to us.

    The same is true for every other emotional experience.

    Emotions are not deficiencies. They’re the essence of what makes us human.

    If we ever hope to win this battle against a consistently declining quality of life, we need to stop referring to emotions as mental health, and we need to stop defining the duress that we experience in life as a mental illness.

    We need to reconnect with the human behind the pain, instead of dehumanising them by denying the legitimacy of their emotional experience.

    Break the stigma. Stop the labelling. Embrace the humanness.

  • Labelling humans

    Labelling humans

    We dehumanise the human when we label their emotional experience as an illness.

    The moment we attach a label to a life experience, we focus on the label and discard the merits of the experience.

    We make people invisible when we deny the reality of their experience by suggesting that there is something clinically wrong with them, despite causality of their emotional upheaval being clearly associated with their experiences in life.

    In other words, there is a clearly troubling or traumatising experience that they’ve endured to explain their emotional duress, yet we diminish their experience by ‘diagnosing’ them with an illness for feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed, etc. simply because they’re affected by it for longer than we think they should be affected by it.

    The victim readily embraces such labels because it offers hope where they feel hopeless, and allows them to abdicate responsibility for rising above it.

    The oblivious or insensitive ones happily embrace such labels because it demands less emotional investment, or less accountability in their efforts to uplift or support those around them.

    Our aversion to embrace the entirety of the human behind the troubled behaviour denies the victim a voice, or an opportunity to understand their painful experiences in life.

    These labels are worn with shame because it denies us our humanness and makes us a symptom.

    You cannot break the stigma of mental health by undermining the humanness of the ones affected by the stigma.

    Kill the label, kill the stigma.

    If you stigmatise someone’s real life experience, how can you possibly expect them to feel whole?

  • Kill the label. Kill the stigma.

    Kill the label. Kill the stigma.

    ⚠ Trigger Warning ⚠

    The moment we attach a label to a life experience, we focus on the label and discard the merits of the experience.

    We make people invisible when we deny the reality of their experience by suggesting that there is something clinically wrong with them, despite causality of their emotional upheaval being clearly associated with their experiences in life.

    When we readily embraces such labels, it disempowers us to make sense of, and to rise above that which weighs us down.

    When we create such detachment from the cause of our duress, it denies us a voice in expressing our hurt or pain.

    Instead, it convinces us that we’re defective in some way.

    When the shame of such labels grows to define how we appear to others, we find familiarity and a common cause with others who suffer a similar struggle, resulting in a victim mindset that focuses on claiming their space as struggling humans who are afflicted with mental illness.

    That’s how we break each other down as humans, while building each other up as victims.

    You cannot break the stigma of mental health by undermining the humanness of the ones affected by the stigma.

    We need to see the human behind the labels that we throw at each other.

    Until then, compassion and empathy will continue to be in short supply.

    Kill the label, kill the stigma.

  • Break the stigma. Stop the label.

    Break the stigma. Stop the label.

    I think it was Dr Wayne Dyer who said that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

    This is true both positively and negatively.

    Do you know someone who has a problem for every solution? Who sees doom and gloom at the happiest of moments? Who is preempting a negative outcome despite things going in their favour?

    Do you think they have a mental illness, or have they just been hurt so many times before, that they are afraid to hope for a positive outcome? Are they simply protecting themselves from being let down again?

    This is how we experience life when we finally give up hope about the future, or we give up hope about being appreciated.

    That absence of hope is what causes us to feel depressed. Depression is a legitimate experience of human emotions after we’ve taken one too many hard knocks from life about something important to us.

    The same is true for every other emotional experience.

    Emotions are not deficiencies. They’re the essence of what makes us human.

    If we ever hope to win this battle against a consistently declining quality of life, we need to stop referring to emotions as mental health, and we need to stop defining the duress that we experience in life as a mental illness.

    We need to reconnect with the human behind the pain, instead of dehumanising them by denying the legitimacy of their emotional experience.

    Break the stigma. Stop the labelling. Embrace the humanness.



  • Suicide is avoidable

    Suicide is avoidable

    This is a reminder for those who think that everyone who wears their heart on their sleeves, or are just looking for attention.

    It may not be healthy, but it’s their way of drawing attention to their struggle that they need help with.

    How we respond either enables the unhealthy expression, diminishes their efforts to be heard, or uplifts them through creating understanding about how they may be able to rise above it.

    Death by suicide is avoidable, and so is depression.

    Both just need a small dose of kindness and understanding.

    Don’t go venting at strangers.

    If you need to vent, vent with people that know you so that they have no reason to believe that your frustration is a definition of THEIR worth.

    So, if you see someone you don’t know venting, don’t respond with anger.

    Break the cycle.

    And if it’s someone you do know, let them vent without feeling a need to stop them.

    Once they’re done, then try to find out what’s really going on.

    No one behaves rationally in the midst of their rage.

    But if they’re harming someone in the process, then intervene in the most calm way possible.

    Don’t escalate the situation further.

    And remember, it takes a village…if you don’t have a village to support your efforts, pace yourself and adjust your expectations of what you’re capable of in line with your reality.

    You can’t pour from an empty cup.

    So start by being kind to yourself, before you sacrifice yourself in the service of others.

  • The silent ones

    The silent ones

    True misery doesn’t love company.

    It decays the soul in silence.

    When someone is complaining, it’s because they still have hope that someone cares enough to listen or respond.

    Or even to empathise.

    When they give up on these three things, they go silent because they have grown to accept that no one else cares, or understands the state that they’re in.

    Too often we see their silence and assume it to be acceptance of their struggles or challenges, meanwhile it often symbolises the slow death of dreams, hopes, and ultimately, a life.

    Silence is the silent killer, more than rage.

    Listen with both ears and your heart.

    Pay attention to the silent ones.

    Your noise of ingratitude may just be drowning out their silence of pain.

    Find the balance between living loud and loving sincerely.

    The one without the other will smother people closest to you.

  • Don’t label your struggle

    Don’t label your struggle

    Mental health is about hope. The more hope we have for experiencing joy tomorrow, the better our mental health today.

    The human experience is not an illness.

    The best way to protect your mental health is by recognising your humanness.

    Don’t allow your reality to be labelled as something more than your experience of the ups and downs in your life.

    When you find yourself with more bad days than good days, it’s because you need to do something differently. You need to break a cycle that is not serving you well.

    When you find hope is scarce, or difficult to hold onto, reconnect with your passion and your principles, and trust that it’s not hope that dies, but just our distracted state that makes it difficult for us to sometimes connect with that hope.

    Gently clear away the distractions that have grown to define your state, and reconnecting with hope will come naturally.

    Be kind to yourself first, and not just in physical self care. If you find that difficult to do, , reach out on WhatsApp at +27836599183 or via my website at zaidismail.com for affordable coaching rates.

    Remember, you can’t give what you don’t have. Together, let’s create the life that you’ve always wanted.

  • Who defines you?

    Who defines you?

    It’s easy to lose ourselves to the outcomes of our lives.

    It’s easy to convince ourselves that our achievements, rather than our efforts, are a true reflection of the value we hold within.

    It’s a dance with fate that often destroys hope and replaces it with complacency.

    In a world saturated with the ungrateful and the insincere, measuring your worth by the behaviour of others is an exercise in self harm..and simply adds you to the ranks of the ungrateful.

    If resisting your true nature is the root of unhappiness, then knowing your true nature must be the key to joy.

    Therefore, measuring your true worth by the demons of others will lead you away from joy and towards pain, as you convince yourself that how they treated you is all you’re worthy of.

    You were not created to pacify the weak.