Why does depression imprison people to their beds?
“Mother… is the train here yet?” whispered the frightened boy under his breath. But his question was drowned out by the deafening blare of the air raid sirens. A handful of frazzled passengers reluctantly scattered from the fringes of the crowd. But most stood resolutely on the overflowing railway platform. Each hoping that the next train would soon appear across the horizon.
“Mother!” Shouted the boy with greater urgency. “Shouldn’t we go and hide too?”
But before she could respond, the unspeakable happened. An artillery shell rocketed across the sky and collided with the Colonial style train station. The entire platform erupted in a ball of chaos, fire, and death.
When he opened his eyes, his mother was dead. And a strong and forceful grip of a nearby man pulled him to his feet. He shouted, “RUN!”
Immediately, the boy sprinted across the field of limp bodies. But before he got very far, an arm reached out and pulled him back down. It was a dying woman. She begged the boy to bring her baby to safety.
As he clumsily strapped the flailing newborn to his chest, the dying woman used the last ounce of her strength to pull out a large tattered tote filled with metal tins containing powdered milk formula. She forced it upon his shoulder. Before he was able to run off, she thrusted a large plastic jug of water into his other hand.
“Pour the water into the powder to make milk.” she sobbed as she collapsed lifelessly back to the ground.
As the boy continued to dash through chaotic platform, he tripped and fell onto his side. As he collapsed onto the ground, he couldn’t get up.
As each person rushed by, they silently labelled him as being weak, lazy and unmotivated in their minds. But in reality, they had no idea that he was being weighed down by the weight of the baby, powered formula, and overwhelming sense of grief.
Many people suffering from depression are often mislabeled as being lazy and unmotivated when they find themselves unable to get out of bed. But just like this boy, their lack of action is sometimes due to the crushing and overwhelming weight of the emotional or mental burdens they are forced to carry each and every day.
