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Health & Fitness

Wallace's Best Scoop: Revealing Depression as a Disease

Wallace's brave legacy.

Obviously, it’s not news to say that the world lost an incredible journalist with its loss of Mike Wallace. In some ways, more commendable than his stoic career were his pioneering efforts championing the cause of a disease still shunned by many.

 Depression – That dirty word that we’re taught at a young age to never use, especially in conjunction with ourselves. Other diseases such as diabetes or cancer are met with sympathetic eyes and understanding words. Even in today’s modern times, depression is treated less as a clinical chronic disease and more as a moral failing. Believe me, I would know. There have been times I would have rather admitted to having the Plague than actually accepting my own struggles with depression.

 What makes Mike Wallace a giant among men is that as a very public persona, he went to Congress in 1996 to advocate for federal funds for depression research, particularly among the elderly, and bravely revealed on multiple occasions that he himself was no stranger to the affliction. Although it may seem like a small act, reducing the public stigma of depression is one that few celebrities ever really try to do, even though these acts allow for others to talk more freely of their own bouts with the disease and may ultimately save lives. According to statistics from the National Mental Heath Association (NMHA), 54% of people believe depression is a personal weakness and 41% of depressed women are too embarrassed to seek help. Roughly 9.5% of the U.S. population in any given year will suffer a serious bout of depression, and most of us will be impacted by it, either personally or through dealing with a friend or family member.

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 Depression is a serious life-threatening disease. A year ago, I sat at my friend’s funeral after he committed suicide. While many of us shared our favorite memories of him and cried while realizing how much we miss him, we rarely, if ever, brought up the disease that ultimately took his life.

 There are a lot of things that we as the average citizen can’t do. It’s highly unlikely that we’re going to find the meaning of life, cure cancer, end war, or come up with some magic way to lose weight sitting on the sofa and catching up on the latest season of Glee. Here’s the good news. Taking away the stigma of depression by being open and talking about it, asking those around us, “No but really, how are you?” is something that we can do. Mike Wallace’s brave openness and legacy is a good reminder that it doesn’t take a Superhero cape to save lives and change the world for the better. 

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