Introduction
Depression, a term that is usually associated with mental illness, has been coined with a serious stigma that the individual who has depression is weird, misfit, or an outcast. Paulo Giordano’s novel, The Solitude Of Prime Numbers, provides a glimpse into the reality of people who suffer with depression, along with the challenges they face daily. The character in this book, as well as individuals who suffer with depression, are most often faced with mental differences that limit their ability to function in areas of non-interest to them, but exceeding in others. Through both Mattia and Alice’s characters, we can see the author’s thorough examination of how depression occurs. Depression can be onset from traumatic events that attack both the mental state and the physical one. Mattia lost his twin at a young age. This scarred him emotionally and turned his emotions into depression. Whereas Alice encountered a permanent, physically disabling, accident in her youth. The accident left her with feelings of perpetual depression. Depression can bring an individual into seclusion; seemingly outcast or misfit. It stands true that individuals with depression feel solitary and alone, but in a world full of faces. With all the updated medical practices, can’t something be done to remove such emotional behaviours? The issue the book brings up, as does every day life, is how difficult it is to live every day so close to others-but living in seclusion. Whilst searching for the next “prime” such as themselves, they may feel the need to give up hope; even when the next "prime" seems so far out of reach, people with depression choose to go on. This happens when they find similarities of seclusion in those around them.
Currently, in Canada, depression is defined as “a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason” (Dictionary, 2015). There have been instances where individuals have secluded themselves to solidarity in order to cope with the everyday battles of living with depression. For example, students who feel they cannot come to class because they feel incapacitated by their illness, lack of interest, and lack of freedom to be alone when needed, will refuse to show up for days-even weeks. This causes grades to slip and the student may become even more secluded as time goes on.
Depression is a topic preferred by many to boycott. What if people started talking about it? How could talk groups, and psychologist sessions, impact the lives of those coping with depression? Can the stigma surrounding this topic every truly disappear? It is important that people start discussing depression, and its affects, because people coping with this mental illness need to be better understood-not stigmatized as weird or outcast.
The controversy arises when the discussion begins about where depression stems from. Is it attention seeking? Is it biological? Is it a neurological chemical imbalance? What is it?
Research is working hard to develop new theories and explanations for the affects of depression. Scientists want to determine how they can help the individual to live a normal life to the best form possible. Depression affects not only the individual themselves, but also those who surround them. Depression hurts.