I like to think of depression in the literal sense as a force that deflates a man and leaves him formless. The effect of depression on human soul can be likened to a deflated ball. one amazing thing about deflating a ball is that there has to be an external force that is being applied on the ball and a way for the internal force to give way.. Such that if the external force is greater than the internal force, a burst becomes inevitable which comes as a result of the internal force not being able to withstand the pressure of the external force. Another way for the ball to be deflated will be if the valve becomes removed (still due to the external pressure) out of will. Whichever way there is still a deflation, and the truth about deflated ball is that it always is left formless and empty, maybe never to be inflated again (as in the case of a burst) of may just have to await inflation again.

Now, relating the ball effect to the effect of depression on the human soul and body, you will discover that there are lots of analogies here. The human body is like the ball in our illustration. It receives a lot of pressures from the world outside of him. The pressures could range from physical exertion or could be mentally exerted ranging from work, relationships and even to leadership and responsibility – whatever pressure there is in life that is constantly pressing against us from every side, and the truth about this is that the more pressures we receive, the more strength we loose in the battle, such that what determines whether we can last beneath the pressures is the amount of strength we have working inside of us,. We need to get ourselves to a point where our inner strength is greater than the amount of pressures that hits us from every side. But there is a catch to this. There’s a great need to realize that a ball doesn’t get deflated in a day, instead it looses it’s inner strength with respect to the consistency of the pressure, Likewise the human soul; the more pressures it receives, the more strength leaves him. This strikes in me that there should be a way of replenishing lost energies just so we don’t get completely deflated. As long as the pressures that we experience from our immediate outside keeps on coming and is much more than what we carry on the inside, then we inevitably reach the bursting point or remove our valve to our lives and let go by ourselves such that we attain a deformed and malformed state in our existence.

Having established the fact that the effects of the external pressure is a gradual state, there is therefore need for you to know how to build up inner strength and fortitude to stand guard and build a lasting and tough garrison around yourself. Like every normal process in life, building this garrison takes a whole lot of time, as a matter of fact, it could last a life time.