The Unseen Horror...

As usual, I boarded an MRT home from my attachment at Bukit Batok after work. It was kinda of crowded with the evening crowd all squeezing into the compact space like a can of sardine. But, I saw an event which really put me in deep thought. In this specific compartment where I was, there was an obese Malay boy wearing school uniform in it. On first impression, he would not strike you as anyone special and it was exactly that led me to stand beside him without realising my "mistake". His "true colours" started to come out within the next few stations...initially, I thought I had some hearing problems but it was otherwise. The Malay boy was mumbling nonsensically to himself. When I followed exactly what he was mumbling LOUDLY to himself, I started to have fragments of a jigsaw puzzle to piece together a picture. He was proclaiming to himself that the next time if some "Kelvin" guy bully him, he will tell the guy off. The worst thing was he sorta had some Obsessive Compulsive Disorder cos he kept repeating what he said non-stop, WORD for WORD!(At least that shows his memory is still there)

There was an awkward silence in that compartment while he was continuing to talk in his limbo. I started to realise that people around him, including me, was pretending not to see him. I really sympathised with him and wanted to talk him out of his own world. However, another guy in his 40s started to question him:"Boy, are you OK?" All of a sudden, it appeared that he was woken up from a dream and muttered under his breath that he is perfectly fine. But within half a minute, he was back in his previous state of sub-consiouness. The guy was actually kind enougth to pursue a conversation with him to find out more about his condition and keep him "awake". I also figured out that one way, if not the only one, was to keep talking to him to prevent him from initiating self-talk and the cycle of "no-return". As soon as the kind guy left the MRT before the boy, he was in no time back to his "own self". I wonder if he is aware of his own state of thought?

You may think...I will never become like him. But it seems that a psychological problem is not as visible as a physical one and more often than not, we may tend to ignore the small signals our body is trying to tell us and before we know it, we are struck by the aftermath of the struggle between sanity and the other extreme.

Depression is one of them. Like other social beliefs, which are most often not true, depression is believed to be a moral weakness or a character flaw by many BUT in actual fact, it is a medical illness with biological roots. It cannot be wiled or wished away. Check the list below to find out if you have symptoms of depression...do not worry if you really do have one or two of them. Like any other normal people, we sometimes do fall into a "depression-like" state called sadness. But, if you experience 5 or more of these symptoms for 2 weeks or longer, you are likely to be depressed. Do seek medical attention if it is true cause the longer you with-hold yourself from a cure, the worse the effects of depression will have on your entire life!


- Persistent sadness or feeling down or gloomy

- A loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed, such as socializing with friends and family, most of the day, nearly every day.

- Loss of appetite and loss of weight.

- Insomnia. For some people, on the contrary, they find that they are sleeping more than normal.

- Feeling restless and agitated more easily.

- Feeling tired and having little energy.

- Unable to concentrate and think clearly and thereby becoming indecisive.

- Feeling of worthlessness and quilt

- Recurrent thoughts of death