What About My Feelings?

There are sentences that stay with you long after the conversation has ended.

Not because they were profound.

Because they were desperate.

“What about my feelings?”

Of all the conversations I’ve had over the years, those four words refuse to leave me…

The speaker wasn’t trying to win an argument.

He wasn’t looking for sympathy.

He was asking a question no one seemed willing to answer.

One of my friends lived with depression for most of his life.

If you met him on a good day, you’d never know. He could laugh, encourage others and somehow find the strength to ask how you were doing, even when his own world was quietly collapsing beneath his feet.

His wife understood him. Truly understood him.

Perhaps that’s enough, I sometimes tell myself.

But I wish more people had.

Whenever he tried to explain what was happening inside his mind, the responses came almost on autopilot.

“You’re overthinking.”

“Thoughts aren’t facts.”

“Just think positively.”

Someone even told him the feelings were demonic.

As though suffering needed a spiritual explanation before it deserved compassion.

Then one day he quietly asked,

“What about my feelings?”

That question has haunted me ever since.

Not because I couldn’t answer it.

Because almost nobody else did.

Years later, while I was recovering from my own trauma, he finally shared more of his own journey.

It’s strange how pain recognises pain.

Despite everything he carried, he and his family somehow became some of my biggest cheerleaders. Whenever life threw another curveball my way, there they were—encouraging me, praying for me, reminding me to keep going.

People who are drowning often become remarkably good at spotting someone else gasping for air.

I never forgot that.

One thing I’ve learned is that there is a difference between knowledge and understanding.

Someone can read every textbook ever written on depression.

They can memorise diagnostic criteria.

They can quote therapy techniques word for word.

That still doesn’t mean they understand what it feels like to wake up exhausted before the day has even begun.

You don’t have to experience something yourself to help someone.

But you do have to believe them.

The old saying is true.

Only the person wearing the shoe knows exactly where it pinches.

From the outside you might admire the polish.

Only the wearer knows there’s a stone inside.

Many years ago I worked alongside psychiatrists and multidisciplinary mental health teams.

Every few months another newly qualified doctor would arrive.

Bright.

Passionate.

Convinced they were about to change the world.

Then reality introduced itself.