Day 42

22.05.18

WeRun Update: 3411 steps

Truth.
My stay here just got a lot tougher knowing that one of my friends has depression. I was supposed to have dinner with her when I arrived in Nanjing and my friend would always push back on me saying that she was sick and this happened for the last few weeks. Until she told me she had depression - I later found out that she was in the middle of getting a divorce, she's lost all motivation to go to work and hasn't been to the office for months and she's losing custody of her two children. When I invited her to come over to have a chat, it really hurt me to see her in the state that she was. A couple of months ago, all seemed well when my mum and I met her for dinner - but little did I know that something serious was going down. She looked like a ghost and the way she talked - it was all negative, pessimistic, lost all hope in life and she sounded like she wanted to give up on life. She had been admitted to hospital and now is taking medications to control her mood (which I found very scary). Although, I wasn't close with her at all, when someone tells you something like this, you need to help out.

It really puts everything in perspective for me here. Everyone has their own issues, shit, I've got my own issues that I've been dealing with for a while now. You don't really think of the seriousness of it until it affects someone you know. In China, you can't really tell if people have mental health issues because here, people care about their face too much and they never want people to worry for them. It makes a lot of sense, but at the same time, the best way is to speak out.

I spent a whole day looking after and being there for my friend. I'm half her age and absolutely do not understand what it's like to go through these types of events. All I can do is be there for her and be a shoulder for her to lean on - because sometimes it's what people going through these types of issues really need. It's made me realise that sometimes we are really harsh on ourselves and we tend to look at things in a pessimistic light. When I was giving advice to my friend, I realised that I should also give the same advice to myself.

Our struggles make us who we are - if we didn't have hardship in life, our lives wouldn't be interesting - and if we didn't overcome our hardships, we wouldn't feel like we've achieved anything. Try telling that to someone who wants to leave everything behind, run away from her problems and drift away as if there was no life left in her. It hurts me seeing her like this but I truly believe she can get better and I hope I can at least bring some positivity and life back into her, even if it is for a short moment.

Why do we fall down? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up. 

Alfred says this to Bruce Wayne after he thinks he can't save Gotham anymore. Bruce replies with: "You still haven't given up on me." to with Alfred says "Never". During dark times, even the dimmest light can show you the way.