Last year, I gave up on a person that I held very close to my heart. It was difficult for me to understand what he meant when he said he saw no light. I always used to see light. I just couldn’t comprehend what he meant when he said, “I can’t help it. I am deeply unhappy.” From where I stood it seemed easy enough to be happy. It seemed like if people chose to, they could have a better control over how they feel. I always had control over how I felt.

He sought a friend in me. Whenever he had enough energy to see someone, he came to me in hopes that I was the person who would listen. Little did I know my listening was very poor?—?a flaw I’d only realise one year down the line.

I knew he needed saving, but I didn’t know that he needed me to just acknowledge what he was feeling. I knew that he needed assurance that everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t know it had to be shown through action, through patience, and through love. All I offered was bigger than life advice. Advice that didn’t stem from experience, just mere assumption.

When he struggled to communicate his feelings, I took offense. When he finally communicated, I only heard what I wanted to hear.

And when I spoke, I only said what he absolutely didn’t need to hear.

“Trust me, this will pass. Everything does.”

What he was going through was not everything. It was depression. And I didn’t understand depression.

Every time he tried to off-load his baggage, I tried to convince him that it was not as heavy as he believed it was. When he tried to explain how it felt like there was a black cloud chasing him, depriving him of the sunlight all the time; I kept telling him maybe it was the other way around. “May be you are refusing to see the light.”

He needed me to see the pain and agony he was going through. I kept telling him he could choose not to be in pain. He was trying. I was trying too. But, there just was no meeting point. No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t be on the same page.

I blamed him for not trying enough, “You give up too soon.” Then I blamed fate, “It was not meant to be.” And then I finally blamed time, “We would have worked it out had we met earlier or later in our lives.”

I never blamed myself for giving up on him. From where I stood, I had done my part. “I loved him as much as I could. I gave my best.”

I did. But I was exhausted. I wanted to be there for him. But I didn’t have the energy left, because I had wasted it all on refuting him, instead of investing it on shoving my judgment aside and just being there.

This year, I started speaking his language. “I feel small. I feel useless. There’s no point of me.”

I started living his routine. I couldn’t wake up. There was nothing I could look forward to. I felt stuck. My feet refused to move. Every little action, every other word felt like a drag. I would swing back and forth between “I need to get this done” and “Why can I not get this done?”

I sought for people and their attention for a sense of normalcy and immediately ran away from it all because it only further disturbed my state of mind. I could neither write, nor illustrate. And the more time I lost, the more anxious I became. Anxiety led to guilt and guilt then led to self-loathing. I tried to love myself. It was not easy. I tried to fight the feeling. It was difficult?—? almost impossible. I felt a dark cloud chasing me.

I felt low. I couldn’t help it. I was deeply unhappy.

It was difficult to be alone. I sought out company who would see the pain and agony that was weighing me down. And I held back for the fear that somebody would say, “It is not as heavy as you think it is.”

But heavy it was. And it only weighed heavier when I realised I could have been there for my friend when he needed me, but I refused to see him for what he was.

Depression is ugly. When you see it in someone you love, you don’t like to acknowledge it’s there. You go into denial. You tell yourself  ‘it’s a phase’, you tell them  ‘it’s a matter of time.’ Perhaps it is a matter of time, but that’s the last thing the other person wants to hear.

That’s the first thing the person in depression already knows. They are seeking help because they are worried about the here and now. They are seeking help because the future holds little to no meaning at all for them. They are seeking help because they just need to get through today and knowing there’s a better tomorrow just does not help.

But we also fail to see and acknowledge the kind of help somebody is asking for because depression is so alien. When you finally come face to face with it, you just don’t know what to do. We hardly hear anybody talk about depression. Everybody knows what happens when somebody is suffering from flu, nobody knows what goes into depression.

I didn’t understand then. I understand now.So, when somebody comes to you and asks for help, be ready; not to impart your wisdom but to just be there in the same time and space with the person so that they feel not-alone. When they fail to communicate, take the time to listen to all that agony that their silenceis trying so hard to suppress. When they cry, don’t tell them it’s going to be okay. Tell them you are sorry it’s so difficult for them. When they shut themselves in, take them in your arms and hold them tight.

If I could go back in time, I would just shut up, hold his hands, and embrace him every chance I got. Because when there’s a dark cloud chasing you, sometimes all you need is love, the kind that understands and sees you for what (and all) you are going through.