Lately I’ve felt a relapse of melancholy. It was a taste of the pains I went through years ago. The feeling of being unloved, unwanted, helpless, hopeless and loneliness. The silence of your world is the most terrible and wondrous feeling. Your tongue is cut by your oppressors. You feel blades slicing deep within your heart. You cannot call out for help. No one knows. No one cares. Yet, you yourself can listen to the pain of your crying heart.

Among people, you wear a mask of happiness. You force yourself to forget the melancholy, and for awhile you succeed. But once you’re alone, the shadows creep in to smother your breath.

Of all things, I learnt not to deny pain. It is part and parcel of life. Being in denial of pain will consume every ounce of positivity and kindness you have left. It makes you cold hearted and vengeful. The denial of melancholy will not prevent the pain from seeping in; it will prolong the suffering.

I’ve accepted the recent sorrow, and it has faded. Yet, it had a purpose. I was reminded of the noble ideal I came across when battling depression last time.

Buddhism calls this ideal compassion.

Human being suffer. We suffer due to the ignorance of our true nature of impermanence. Suffering has no comparison; each person deals with pain and feels pain differently. At some point, every human being (and sentient being) encounters pain, for it is part of the cycle of pain and pleasure.

The cure for suffering is compassion. If you seek to lighten another person’s pain, you will diminish your own pain. You learn to understand pain on a different level, from a different person. Understanding turn to acceptance and you will see yourself in that person. In essence, every person is the same.

This is what I’ve forgotten for so long. I’ve lost my compassion in one of the major relapses of depression. I became hateful towards people who made me resent myself. As lofty as this goal is, I strive to be more compassionate…

Logen L.