Depressed - Dont worry

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Guest

Robert Enke's suicide provoked universal shock and sadness. It turns out Bill Shankly was wrong. Football isn't more important than life and death.

Depression

Mental illness is not regarded with the same sympathy as physical illness

The disclosure that Enke had been battling depression for six years triggered the usual questions about how the world of professional sport deals with mental health issues, but this isn't just a problem in sport. It's a problem with society.

Robert Enke had kept his depression secret, and his club didn't know he was having difficulties.

He was ashamed and frightened, and clearly felt he couldn't tell anyone about his illness.

But even if he had, would anyone have listened? How many of us want to hear the real answer when we ask our friends, "How are you?".

Even those, like me, who suffer from depression, struggle to understand it. The stigma attached to mental illness makes it very difficult to talk about, but until we do, we can't hope to increase understanding and break down the misconceptions.

Everybody knows the statistic about cancer. One in three of us will develop cancer at some stage in our life. That makes sense, because it chimes with our experience.

But did you know that one in four B

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Guest

You don't feel weak, guilty or ashamed for having cancer. That's exactly what you feel when you have depression.

At first that seems ludicrously high, because it doesn't seem to tally with 'reality', but that's just because so few sufferers feel comfortable talking about their illness.

When you have cancer, people bring you flowers, they tell you how brave you are and they make allowances for your occasional grumpiness.

Exactly the opposite happens with depression.

You don't feel weak, guilty or ashamed for having cancer. That's exactly what you feel when you have depression.

If you find the analogy shocking, ask yourself what's the real difference?

For Robert Enke, and thousands of others, depression is painful, debilitating and sometimes, tragically, terminal. Shouldn't we start taking depression as seriously as we take cancer?

That has to start with the NHS. If you're diagnosed with cancer, you see a specialist within days.

My GP only accepted that I had depression after I'd come dangerously close to taking my own life.

Even then, I was quoted a waiting time of up to six months before I could see a counsellor.

I wouldn't have made it through that six months if I hadn't had access to Sky's private health care. Most people aren't that lucky.

Guest

Robert Enke

We also need to be more sympathetic to those, like Robert Enke, for whom the pain becomes too much. He wasn't being weak or selfish when he took his own life.

As Stephanie Merritt writes in her beautiful and moving memoir The Devil Within: "Many, many people love their children, their partners, their parents, their friends and still take their own life… the sheer desperation of suicidal depression can override love and duty - it even trumps the survival instinct, the fiercest and most fundamental passion we own."

Depression is an evil illness. I write this, not looking for sympathy, but in the hope of a bit more understanding.

If you're suffering from depression, I hope it will give you the courage to talk to someone about it.

If you're not suffering from depression, I hope it will give you the courage to listen.

Unfortunately, it's too late for Robert Enke. It might not be too late for someone you know.