“I Had A Black Dog Called Depression”, The Short That Helps Us Understand It
“I Had a Black Dog Called Depression” is an educational short film made by the World Health Organization that aims to help us understand what depression really means for people who suffer from it.
We have to emphasize at this point that depression is not a choice and therefore we should work to avoid labels and the stigma that goes with it. Precisely for this purpose the video with which we illustrate this article was edited.
A short that has already gone around the world
“I had a black dog called depression” is a short that has been around the world since it became popular on the Internet a few years ago. Since then psychologists and other people in the service of mental health use this video as a way to illustrate and represent depression.
However, before watching the video, we must emphasize that the metaphor of using the image of the black dog as depression goes back to the expression that Winston Churchill used to describe his melancholy. This powerful British politician who fought Nazism fiercely stated that he was frequently trapped in depression, a beast that always accompanied him and possessed him during the last years of his life.
A dog whose lugubrious howls torment the mind of the listener, subjecting his life to anguish, heaviness and apathy. :
When clarity turns to pain and shadow
Depression is not a choice, nor is it a sign of weakness. There is no one who can decide on this sentence. We don’t work that way, nor do we have a button that activates our ability to feel good or bad.
Thus, it can happen to all of us. One day, suddenly, everything loses meaning to us. There is nothing that motivates us, encourages us, or deserves us to get out of bed. The black dog begins to get bigger and bigger, making us feel deeply sad and irritable.
His presence exhausts us and overwhelms us, anguish invades us and circumstances overcome us, feeding our black dog without strength or desire. Sometimes we are more aware of the presence of the animal but there is also the possibility that at a certain moment it will give us a break. That does not mean that it has disappeared.
Instability is his specialty, which contributes to social and emotional isolation. When the black dog accompanies you, you can end up feeling that you do not deserve the company of those close to you or that you are not able to give anyone what they need.
There will be times when the black dog is heavier and others when it is more unruly, but having the certainty that it remains by our side is suffocating. That is why it is important that we go to a mental health professional, psychologist or psychiatrist, as they can help us give emotional coherence to the existence and stalking of this black dog.
There are as many black dogs as there are people, so none of us are safe. Thus, if we do not know depression in the first person,
Let’s not forget:
If we feed this stigma, we are feeding the idea that we have chosen to suffer. Let’s not set our mind on fire with an internal dialogue that belittles and belittles our emotions and problems. The black dog exists and gives shade to millions of people in the world. Let us understand it and offer help, even if it is by way of information through this means of communication.
