How depression can be a journey to self-discovery and spiritual healing

We used to romanticise everything – love, work, war, even death. It was the 1970s, a time of regional conflicts, protests, the Vietnam war and, in China, the Cultural Revolution. The headlines were as gloomy as those today. But for a developing teenage mind, it was heaven for exploration, offering endless possibilities to experiment with the world without and engage with our changing selves deep within.

Part of growing up involves experiencing the blues – various kinds of depressive moods. It was a sign of maturity, a rite of passage into the adult world. But soon, we learnt that the blues, in their severe form, can take a toll. A close friend decided to end his life when he was about to graduate from university. In a restaurant, he had talked to me about his troubled family and his love life. It was “deep stuff”.

That meeting was our last. A day later, I saw his name in the papers. The blues took on a new meaning. My friend suffered from depression, later thought to be the result of a prolonged family feud.

But the blues are a part of life. Later that year, my relationship issues were followed by bouts of depression and sleepless nights. I also started to suffer panic attacks: the fear so intense, uncontrollable, and ­unpredictable that you can doubt your own sanity.

That made me see a clinical psychologist for the first time. Just being told these attacks are quite common for people my age was almost half the cure.

Why talking to depressed Hong Kong teens is a matter of life and death

The panic attacks returned later. But this time, I got to “know” them. I could name them and knew their shapes and sizes, and learned to live with them. Those sessions were important. I came to see that psychological troubles can be managed, at times with the help of someone. I also came to see that psychological distress may be a necessary junction in the path of personal growth, depression included.