Depression is the most predominant mental health issue worldwide, with millions suffering.

There is a wealth of statistics to illustrate the problem. According to the World Health Organisation, more than 300 million people of all ages have it at some point in their lives, and it is the main cause of disability.

And yet despite its prevalence, people with depression are constantly having to defend and define their depression under a mountain of stigma attached to mental health disorders.

It is in this vein that a viral thread written by comedian Andy Richter, in which he responded to someone on Twitter who wrote depression is a “choice” from 2017, has resurfaced.

He has painstakingly described what it’s like to live with depression, and why it isn’t a choice.

Richter became so irate by the tweet suggesting depression is a choice that he pulled his car over to properly respond.

“I have been followed by an ever-present amorphous sadness for almost my entire life,” he began. “I am 51 yrs old. It varies in strength from a casual unresolvable suspicion that I will never find the joy that others do in a sunset, to the feeling that being dead might a respite & a kindness.”