Her husband grew impatient. “If you don’t get up now, what are the kids supposed to eat before school?” he asked.
After another sleepless night, Mai asked him to take the children to school and buy them breakfast. He frowned. “Everyone who works has stress and loses sleep. Do you think you’re the only one who’s tired?”
Tears filled her eyes, and she turned to face the wall. Though dizzy, she forced herself up to make breakfast.
Three months earlier, a doctor had diagnosed Mai with depression and an anxiety disorder. Side effects from her first course of medication left her groggy and drained during the day, while she slept fitfully for just two or three hours at night. When she said she wanted to quit her job to get treatment, her husband scoffed at the idea, citing their home loan and education and other expenses for their two children.
She says despairingly: “He doesn’t believe I’m ill. When he sees me lying there unable to get up, he calls me lazy, that I’m thinking negatively and making myself suffer.”
After being dismissed repeatedly, she stopped speaking up and endured her panic attacks alone.
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People with depression may experience persistent fatigue, sleeplessness and a lack of motivation. Illustration photo from Pexels |
Linh, 15, also of Hanoi was diagnosed with mild depression in May after an unusual decline in her schoolwork during the second semester of ninth grade.
Holding her medical record, her father tore off the prescription and threw it on her desk, saying: “What illness? You’ve had it too easy so now you’re acting crazy? If you’re too lazy to study, just own up to it. Stop this defiant act.”
Her parents had noticed a change since the start of her first year of high school. Once a member of her school’s literature competition team, she began skipping meals and shutting herself in her room. Her test scores fell from eight out of 10 to below average. When her mother knocked and called her to dinner, Linh lay facing the wall without answering.
Her father thought puberty had made her rebellious and that she “liked acting as though she didn’t care so that her parents would coddle her.” One evening in mid-September, he found her sitting at her desk for three hours without writing anything.
He snatched her notebook away and shouted: “We’ve raised you, given you a proper education, and now you’re throwing it all away. You glare at us whenever we say anything. Do you plan to keep this up forever?”
She looked up. She wanted to tell him she could not remember what she had just read and that her head hurt, feeling as though a stone were pressing on it.
But when she saw her father’s angry expression and hear her mother’s weary sigh from the doorway, she swallowed her words. She lowered her head and dug her fingernails into her palms until they bled. From that day on, Linh stopped speaking altogether.
Their experiences are not isolated. Nearly 15 million people, or 14.9% of the population, had mental disorders, according to figures provided by the Vietnamese Ministry of Health in 2022.
Depression and anxiety were the most prevalent, at 5-6%. World Health Organization figures indicate that one in eight people worldwide has a mental health condition.
An estimated 727,000 people committed suicide in 2021. Depression is among the factors linked to suicide, but its causes are more complex.
Dr. Nguyen Viet Chung, head of the mental health department at E Hospital in Hanoi, says: “Even so, the biggest barrier preventing patients from seeking medical care is not the cost or the treatment plan. It is the prejudice within families that sees depression as a weakness or an attempt to avoid responsibility.
“Parents think their child is tired because of school, cannot sleep because of their phone, does not want to go to school because they’re lazy, or withdraws because they’re growing up.”
When children speak up, they hear responses such as “That’s all it took for you to whine?” or “We had it much worse in our day.” Chung shared his experience with many such cases as part of his work.
To a person with depression, these send the message that no one can see that something is wrong, he says.
Psychologist Hoang Quoc Lan of Phuong Dong General Hospital in Hanoi says people with depression face both physical and mental exhaustion.
When energy and motivation fall sharply, even everyday tasks can feel beyond them. Some take a long time to get out of bed, care for themselves, or begin a task. Many feel constantly on edge, their minds running through worst-case scenarios.
When someone cannot meet the demands of work, school, or even personal care, others may mistake them for lazy, weak, or irresponsible.
Their complaints may cast suspicion on them or they may become afraid to speak up. They withdraw further as mental pressure grows. Experts say that, alongside improving public understanding of mental health, acceptance from family and loved ones is important.
Patients need to be heard rather than judged, encouraged to seek professional help, and supported through treatment, they add.
Chung says persistent insomnia, exhaustion, or loss of interest for two weeks or more should prompt a medical evaluation.
However, these symptoms alone do not establish a diagnosis of depression, and a clinician must assess the full pattern of symptoms and their effect on daily life.
Families should also change how they speak, ceasing to make judgmental remarks such as “Just try harder,” “Everyone is stressed out,” or “Just admit you’re lazy.”
Instead, they can acknowledge what the person is going through and say “You must be exhausted,” “Let‘s go see a doctor,” or “We’re here for you.”
Someone who becomes severely physically depleted should seek medical care.
If a person begins harming themselves or is in immediate danger of doing so, seek emergency help without delay, the World Health Organization (WHO) advises. Depression is a treatable mental disorder, not “madness.” Its causes involve a complex mix of social, psychological and biological factors, according to the WHO.
Treatment can include psychotherapy and, when required, medication. Recovery times vary, and patients should not stop taking prescribed medication on their own when they begin to feel better.
Chung also urges families not to blame themselves if the patient has not improved, saying what matters is making sure the person knows they are still loved and respected. “Feeling believed in and having someone by their side is often the first step that lets a person who has suffered in silence dare to ask for help.”