“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” -Wadsworth Longfellow

I once had a friend called Emmanuel. He was a very jovial and lively guy. Emma was one of the happiest people I know, he was always smiling and no one around him could have thought he was going through a hard time. Yeah he wasn’t financially buoyant but he seem contented with life or at least that was what we all thought until we heard he died.

I still remember how devastated I was the day I heard the news. Alas Emma has committed suicide. Wait what? Why would he do that? We all couldn’t believe our ears. He was happy, he had no serious problems, he wasn’t the suicidal type, were the thoughts running through our minds because the guy we knew as our friend had no reason to commit suicide.

It later dawn on us that all what Emma was showing were merely facade. He was dying on the inside while giving us the happy boy vibe on the outside. He never told anyone what he was going through, he kept storing them until he could no longer and then he exploded.

I felt really bad & I still kind of carry a guilt of not even noticing something was wrong with him. I’d tell myself if only I was a little bit closer to him, if only I took my time to see beyond all the facade, if only I had probe & gone beyond the walls he built around himself, then maybe just maybe he’d still be alive today. I wouldn’t have lost my friend, a man with so much potentials to the claws of death.

I realized that just like my friend Emma, everyone has got a silent battle they’re fighting, something they’re going through and some difficulty they’re experiencing. Many a time we show the world what we think they should see and not what we really are.

Most times, we don’t even realize we are falling into depression. We find ourselves not wanting to tell people what we truly feel thinking we can handle it all on our own. We plaster a smile on our faces while deep inside of us we are crying bitterly. It gets so bad that we master the act of telling people “I’m fine” while bottling so much inside.

True, telling people about what we are going through might not be the solution but talking about it helps to relieve the burden. Although not everyone can be our confidant, we should have someone we trust enough to share our problems with.

I hope we take a step to relieving part of our burdens after reading this. Don’t forget to like, follow, share and comment what you think about this article. See you in my next post😍 xoxo!