Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden. As it is easier to tell, “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken”.

According to American Psychiatric Association Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. 

Depression causes persistent feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional as well as physical problems and can to huge extent decrease a person’s performance and ability to function at work and at home.

Feeling blue once in a while is very normal and healthy. But depression is more than just a bout of blue and you can’t just ‘snap it’. And it is not a sign of weakness because medically it is not possible to treat depression or major depressive disorder on your own. But fortunately depression is treatable via medical assistance in the form of medication and/or therapy.

Here are the signs and symptoms of depression according to Mayo Clinic which you should keep an eye for yourself in yourself and your loved ones to diagnose depression and get help with it :

• Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness
• Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters
• Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities, such as sex, hobbies or sports
• Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much
• Tiredness and lack of energy, so even small tasks take extra effort
• Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food and weight gain
• Anxiety, agitation or restlessness
• Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or self-blame
• Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
• Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide
• Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches

If you observe persistently one or several of these symptoms make an appointment with healthcare professional or doctor as soon as possible.

On Thursday one of the customer at Danish Super Market Føtex refused to get help from a female employee who was wearing head scarf. The customer was asked to leave the shop but it started lots of debate in the news and over the social media. There has been already lots of outrage as Denmark passes the law making the handshake as a mandatory process for naturalization. Not only this but danish government has also come up with the full recipe on how to “shake the hand”.

The whole drama started when the Swedish woman had won compensation after her job interview was ended when she refused a handshake. Instead of taking this case as a good example to follow from their Neighboring country and to discourage the discrimination based on religion and ensuring the minorities of their freedom to practice the religion the Danish Conservatives come up with the counterargument :

The Conservative and Danish People’s parties say that people awarded citizenship in the Scandinavian country must be required to shake hands.

The argument was justified by Danish peoples party representative that the residents who are awarded citizenship of Denmark sign the document during their naturalization ceremonies promising to respect Danish values and if people don’t respect such straightforward law they should not aim for danish citizenship.

The law is clearly aimed at Muslims, whose religion forbids touching members of the opposite sex. In my personal humble opinion danish conservatives and danish peoples party must understand that there is a difference between cultural values and religious values and they should avoid mixing two unless they aim to do so. One can encourage people to integrate culturally but can not force someone to leave behind their religious values as it is not just against the freedom to practice the religion but this feeling of powerlessness and suppression causes also hate and disrespect. Moreover no one should have the right to dictate someone to initiate the body contact with someone else especially against their will.

These extremist politicians while making such policies and laws forget the fact that “Cultural integration is a form of cultural exchange in which one group assumes the beliefs, practices and rituals of another group without sacrificing the characteristics of its own culture”. If you won’t respect the cultural values of the other people, be open and understanding towards them, I must say whether how hard you try you won’t be able to win the respect for your own culture.

They say time heals every wound. But when you are feeling miserable, are heartbroken, have recently experienced a serious loss, it seems unbelievable that there will be a time when these feelings of misery will be gone, your wounds will be healed, you will be over your feelings of helplessness and pain. There won’t be any sorrow or grief. But trust me things change with time and wounds do get healed!

Time and life changes almost everything. Sometimes so gradually and so indistinctly that you can’t even realize it yourself. And then one fine day out of blue when you look back down the isle of time, you get astonished to see how life has wiped the signs of deepest wounds or may be have given such worst scars that you can’t recognize the person in mirror. Yes life changes not always for good and that is another hard reality of life.

Change is not defying, it is something you can’t resist even if you want to resist it with all your heart and soul. You want to hold the happy moments but at the same time when you are sad and lonely you can’t wait to get over them. At one end you are afraid and anticipating the worst because of change but on the other end it is also the phenomena of “change” that gives you the hope for your future. And all you need for life is this “hope”. You can forget everything and run from the fear but if there is no hope there is no life !

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton