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Considered one of the sexiest and most beautiful women in Philippine entertainment since she first appeared in 1984’s May Lamok sa Loob ng Kulambo with Eddie Garcia and Gloria Diaz, actress Lyka Ugarte was once on top of the world, or so it seemed. 

But a losing battle with clinical depression coupled with one tough break after another has devastated the former beauty queen’s professional and personal life. As reported by Pep.ph, on October 12, fueled by a cocktail of financial woes, a painful breakup, and recent experience with sexual harassment, Ugarte attempted suicide—for the fourth time. While she declined to share other details, Ugarte’s daughter Kimberly shared that her mother’s three botched suicides prior to the latest episode were triggered by family conflict and failed relationships.

SELFISH OR OVERWHELMED?
In a live interview with Raymond Gutierrez on Showbiz Central just a week after her most recent attempt, Ugarte shared that she was out of work, out of love, and—owing to the havoc wreaked by typhoon Ondoy—very much out of funds. This, she said, along with the mental downward spiral she has experienced since 2007, led to the familiar idea of taking her own life. She simply lost the drive to live and to fight the depression: “All my life, I've been fighting. Since I was 15 years old, I've been taking care of the family already. At the age of 20, I was a single mom. So, from 15 years old up to the age of 40, it's all fight, fight, fight, fight.” 

While she apologized to her children for her “selfish attitude,” the single mother of four admitted that her repetitive, destructive behaviour was founded not only on the difficulty of her current circumstances but centrally on the overwhelming force of her psychiatric illness. Because of her depression, she is not ready to swear off suicide or promise never to consider it in the future. “I did it again...so, I’m not learning, I guess. The depression is just too much that I could say I’m not learning,” she said. 

SUICIDE: STATS and SPECS

Sadly, the same story is found all over the globe. Highly industrialized and economically advanced nations such as Finland, France, and Japan hold high suicide rates, with more and more of their citizens experiencing mental diseases such as manic depression and bipolar disorder. In the US, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) confirms that men are more successful in taking their own lives, but women attempt to do so more often. 

Additionally, Depression.com notes that men who suffer from depression are four times more likely than women to commit suicide, but the possibility that a woman will develop depressive tendencies is almost twice that of a man. This means we hold double the chance of undergoing the despair, anxiety, and sense of suffocation that victims of the disease find inescapable.

DEPRESSION: A WOMAN’S DISEASE?

What exactly is depression? The World Health Organization defines it as “a common mental disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, and poor concentration.” Depression affects approximately 121 million people worldwide, many of whom contribute to the 850,000 lives lost to suicide every year.
As in Ugarte’s case, depression often results from a combination of unfortunate circumstances, rather than a single pivotal incident. Family history and genetics often play a dominant role in “contracting” the disease. External factors such as trauma and stress contribute significantly to emotional withdrawal, while internal factors such as pessimistic or melancholic personalities act as breeding grounds for low self-esteem. Other existing medical conditions , psychological or not, can also weaken a person’s resolve to live and worsen depressive tendencies.

Women in particular have a hard time dealing with depression because of that ever-present excuse for mood swings—hormones. Depression has been nicknamed—however mistakenly—a “woman’s disease,” because of its close connection to puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. However, it seems that largely socio-cultural complications rather than biological ones are what make the disease so prevalent among the female sex. Successful women juggling high-powered careers with active family time feel the strain of maintaining the perfect work-life balance. When their plans fall through, the disappointment can easily turn into a major depressive disorder. Compound this with money trouble (women still generally earn less than men), marital status (depression finds easy victims in single parents), and sexual or physical abuse, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Celebrated women like chemist Marie Curie, writer Virginia Woolf, and movie star Marilyn Monroe all suffered from depression, despite their success—and some of them didn’t make it out alive.