“Excuse me, are you a psychiatrist?” 

I was walking along the park connector near my home, as I do most evenings.

After hours of sitting in air-conditioned clinics, listening to the heavy, fractured narratives of human suffering, these walks are my ritual to decompress and process the weight of my daily work at my psychiatric practice. 

I was lost in thought, admiring the particularly spectacular sunset that day, when I heard the voice.

I turned to see a man in his late thirties, dressed in a sweat-soaked tee and sports shorts. He wore dark-rimmed glasses, his eyes wide and slightly uncertain. 

“I am,” I replied.

He took a deep breath. “You won’t remember me, Doctor. It’s been 20 years. My name is David.”

I thought hard, but hundreds of faces have passed through the wards and clinics of my career. I smiled apologetically, and he kindly refreshed my memory. 

Two decades ago, when I was working in a restructured hospital as a psychiatrist, David – I’m using a pseudonym – had been a tertiary student going through a bad patch. 

As he spoke, I vaguely recalled a young man, hollowed out by despair, who had once sat in my consultation room staring blankly at the floor.

He had been severely depressed back then, he reminded me, his voice dropping as a couple of people walked past us. He was unable to get out of bed, look people in the eye, and was convinced that his life was at a complete dead end. 

“I just wanted to say thank you,” David said, his eyes glistening. He told me that I had listened to him when he thought he was entirely invisible, and that I had said something during our last session that he had never forgotten.

He remembered me telling him that just because the night feels long, it doesn’t mean the sun has stopped existing.

We stood there on the path as he told me about his life. He was a husband and a father to a seven-year-old girl. He had a stable career that kept a comfortable roof over their heads and a good spread on the table.

As I listened, I didn’t see the broken boy from 20 years ago but a man rooted in the satisfaction of a simple, contented life.

David said that as a young man, he thought that happiness comes from doing massive, earth-shattering things.

Now, for him it is just being present in the regular, everyday moments.

After a few more minutes of conversation, we shook hands. His grip was firm and warm. I watched him jog away as he hurried home to his family while I returned to my walk. The sun had finally dipped entirely below the condominium in the distance. 

As a psychiatrist who treats patients with poor mental health, I’m often witness to the darkest chapters of human existence. It is as though their internal sun has completely set, and they are trapped in what feels like an eternal night. 

But the encounter with David was a beautiful reminder of how resilient the human spirit truly is. 

It is a metaphor that nature plays out for us every single day. A sunset is brief, but it is not a tragedy – it is a transition. The sun dips into the darkness and disappears from sight but it never truly vanishes. It will rise again every morning – bright, blindingly warm, and entirely renewed. 

I’ve spent 25 years working as a psychiatrist, treating patients with all kinds of mental health disorders, from mild to severe.

Currently, I practise at the National Addictions Management Service at the Institute of Mental Health, where I treat patients with addictions. 

Addiction, in particular, can make it difficult for people to believe that things can be different.

Those struggling with addiction tend to recover, only to relapse again, as cravings, triggers, and underlying emotional difficulties can undermine recovery efforts. 

Often, it is only after several relapses that they win the battle. It can be a long and challenging journey to recovery. 

Yet, it is also here, in the midst of the challenges, where I see true, deep and patient love – when parents continue to journey with their adult children in recovery despite several relapses of addiction and disappointment.

And things can, indeed, be different. People can change, whether it is depression, addiction or any other seemingly insurmountable mental health condition. 

Recovery is a long and winding road, but people walk it every day. The darkness of a severe depression can feel absolute, but it is not permanent. Neither is the grip of addiction, however tightly it holds. We will rise again. 

I continued my walk back home, the evening breeze finally bringing a welcome coolness.

I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the simple joy of an evening walk, the encounter with a man who turned his life around, and the absolute certainty that tomorrow morning, the sun would rise again.