I still lay awake at night wondering why no one hears me.

Why everyone is so indifferent and numb to my plight of depression.

Everyone like to say ‘you are not alone’ ‘all you had to do was reach out for help’

I did that and no one listened nor acknowledged my situation.

I survived it.

The blood curling screams of help are drowned out by the void of ignorance and indifference.

The stubbornness of an ill-informed mind is my greatest enemy.

Friends and family all the same.

It is now that I understand that human beings can sit idly as another being dies.

Kevin Carter the Pulitzer Prize winner was celebrated for the picture of the child dying of hunger being stalked by a vulture in 1993.

Mental illness thrives in stigma.

The stigma allows the illness to successfully isolate the victim from society. It gives justification for cries of help to go unnoticed. It allows for people to unfairly judge those who succumb to the illness.

I have never gone down without a fight so I will speak when no one listens, shout the more I am ignored and bare my soul for my fellow warriors to know they are not alone.

-Nyaruai Gitonga