Depression is real. Some days, it feels like a fog that you cannot explain. Because it does not come with a warning sign or a reason. It just comes, sits and presses down on everything you have. I have seen people around me wear smiles while carrying the largest weights. And in our time, this struggle has only deepened.

We scroll through endless posts, curated happiness, success stories and filtered lives. Everyone makes an illusion of “We are doing fine”. It is strange that we are now connected than ever but also more alone than ever. There are helplines, platforms you can reach out to. Yet, when someone is really in crisis, their minds crumble in silence. 

Today, 27 October, is Sylvia Plath’s birthday. She would have turned 93 this year. I remember reading her poems, Lady Lazarus, Tulips and Daddy, in class and feeling a deep melancholy in my heart. 

There was a kind of raw reflection in her words that was hard to not notice. It felt like she was writing it beautifully straight from the edge of something terrible. Our teacher explained that Plath struggled with depression, which we now recognise as bipolar disorder and that her death was a tragedy in the literature world. We did not only lose her but also her talent and genius. Her poems were not just art; they were her way of conveying her story, relieving her pain. 

Plath published two major literary works in her lifetime. “The Bell Jar”, “Ariel” and a poetry volume titled “The Colossus”. According to Timothy Materer, an emeritus professor of English, her works were inevitably influenced by the manner of her death. From her works, it is noticeable that gradually she became more inclined with death than she herself might have imagined. The reason, portrayed by feminists, was an unfaithful husband, domineering father and demands of motherhood. Some critics also mentioned her as a person who was driven to madness and whose work spoke of the uncontrolled things in her conscience. 

Sylvia Plath’s body of work may be small but it is linked to many brilliant poets throughout literary history. For example, her novel “The Bell jar” is one of her most realistic portrayals of a young woman’s descent into depression. Some critics say that she drew it from her own breakdowns and recoveries. Then there is “Ariel”, the collection that created her legacy. Written in the final months of her life, these poems were electric, painful and fierce. Critics have called them “a gust of cold reality”. Other than these, her other poems like “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus” and “Tuilps” expose Plaths inner world, her grief, her rage and her melancholy.  

But I see not just a great poet, I see a woman trying to hold herself together in a world that did not know how to talk about mental health. And that is the most frightening thing. Even now, after decades later, we still lose people like her. Different time, same talent lost to same reason. 

Today, on Sylvia Plath’s birthday, we should not just remember her by admiring her poetry. We should learn from her pain by recognizing the warning signs, reaching out when someone withdraws and understand that brilliance and suffering often live side by side. Depression does not always look tragic; sometimes it looks like someone quietly trying their best. 

In the end, I think what Sylvia Plath needed, what so many of us need, was simple kindness. Not the performative kind but the real, human kind that understands and stays. Her words still remind us how fragile a mind can be when left alone. If there had been more kindness, perhaps her brilliance would have blessed us longer. So, be kind.

As Sylvia Plath once wrote, “Dame Kindness, she is so nice!”