Those suffering from depression should seek professional help

Editor,

Thank you Daily Lobo for your timely Ask Dr. Peg column on depression. As a person who has suffered from severe depression for many years and has helped several friends and students through these dark periods, I want to add to the information in the article.

I want to remind my friends that unlike the impression you may get from depression articles, death by suicide is almost never instantaneous. It is more often a slow, painful death or a severe organ/nerve injury for life. Although it is reported that men are more successful in their suicide attempts than women due to the use of firearms, please know firearms also do not guarantee instant death and instead may lead to a vegetable existence.

I suggest that you call or ask for help, and let me assure you as a person who has fought her way out, hope is actually there at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes you may find faculty, instructors, staff and students to be very uneasy when you confide with your problems. You may find that they judge or criticize you or else withdraw and cease communication with you. It is not a reflection of you; rather, it is a reflection of their ignorance, incompetence and general bias against people who are sad. Please do not take it to heart and instead approach professionals for help. Call Agora at 277-3013 or CATS at 277-4537.

For those of you who do not suffer from depression, if you know of someone who is severely depressed and you are uncomfortable dealing with it, please at least provide them the Agora and CATS phone numbers and urge them to call. Please know that people who suffer from depression are often emotionally highly intelligent and exquisitely mature people as compared to irrational morons who feel and care for nothing.

Bhavana Upadhyaya

UNM student