Have you ever heard a friend or loved one say – “I’m tired .. I can’t concentrate .. everything that’s happening is because of me, it’s my fault .. I don’t like food anymore .. I have anxiety .. bad night sleep .. I can’t make decisions for a long time .. my sexual drive is suppressed or I have depression”. Maybe, such thoughts and feelings suppress you?
Depression is not the fault of the person who suffers from a gloomy, depressed mood. No one wakes up in the morning saying, “I think I’m going to think depressive thoughts today and make myself feel useless.”
Depression is not a choice. A choice in case of illness is when a person or their loved ones have to decide what to do to free themselves from depression.
Although mental health is talked about more and more freely in modern society, it can be safely said that its importance is still underestimated. Stigma in the form of thoughts plays a big role in it – clients think what their friends will think of them if they find out that they are visiting a psychiatrist, what the psychiatrist will think of the client. There is still a misconception in part of the society that most people who seem to be suffering from depression are simply “lost” or “lazy”, they should just get better, change their lifestyle, etc. But, unfortunately, it is not within the power of any human being to suffer from a mental illness or to be healthy in the next moment. It should be understood that depression is not only tiredness and unwillingness to do something, but psycho-emotional disorders, biochemical changes in the human brain that occur as a result of various, mostly genetic, environmental, separation from loved ones or friends, hard work, loss of loved ones, psychotrauma, chronic, etc. affects. Likewise, chronic conditions such as neuroses, panic attacks, sleep disorders, phobias, anorexia, bulimia can cause depression, as a result of which the client feels that he will no longer be able to cope with his own strength. Physical and mental health are closely related, because often a person with a physical illness can develop depression (for example, due to the experiences and suffering caused by this illness), but a mental illness can be one of the steps on the way to a physical illness (a person with a depressed mood, apathy is possible will not consider it necessary to pay attention to their physical complaints, will not seek medical help because “there is no point”).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1 in 15 people in Europe suffer from major depression every year.
Unfortunately, these data also show that 3 out of 4 severe depression patients do not receive adequate help. If all forms of depression and anxiety were included in these statistics, they would already be 4 out of 15 Europeans who are unable to go to work due to illness or do so slowly, unable to maintain meaningful, warm relationships with their family, because they mostly lie in bed tired, cry for their ” imperfections”, or, on the contrary, blames others for the situation in which he finds himself.
This means that despite widely available effective medications, highly qualified psychiatrists and disease treatment guidelines designed to return a person as quickly and successfully as possible to a healthy family, work, friends, to be able to enjoy the joy that each of these components of life provide and would be able to earn money for his further development. Unfortunately, clients who are “afraid of the psychiatrist” are lost to the power of stigma, even though admitting you have depression is like admitting you have the flu.
How to recognize depression?
As different and unique as each of us is, the manifestations of diseases are also different for each person. However, depression, like every disease, has its own set of more common symptoms. These would be:
- Self-deprecating thoughts, feeling of guilt for imagined inadequate behavior, behavior, undone deeds;
- Fatigue that tends to drag on for days affecting concentration;
- depressed mood and hopelessness;
- difficulty making decisions;
- sleep disorders – insomnia or excessive sleepiness, waking up at night and not being able to fall asleep again, because negative thoughts “whirl” in the head, leading to anxiety;
- persistent feelings of depression, anxiety and/or a sense of “emptiness”.
- irritability;
- loss of interest in things that used to bring pleasure, joy (including sexual relations, sports activities) – anhedonia;
- loss of appetite or increased appetite;
- regular, long-lasting pain, indigestion that does not go away with symptomatic treatment, convulsions or tingling in some part of the body (physical health complaints, etc.) in a person who has been examined and recognized as physically healthy;
- suicidal thoughts with or without suicidal thoughts and with or without actual action.
If you suspect that a close person has depression, you must talk about it and provide support, and you must take him to a psychiatrist for consultation. Often, under the influence of depression and social pressure, people try to hide their complaints and this makes the course of the disease even worse. A person with depression will not always look depressed, not take care of their appearance and isolate themselves from others. There are cases when this disease hides under the mask of a satisfied and even successful person – it is also called masked depression.
Depression is one of the leading causes that dramatically affects a person’s ability to work and relationships with others. If untreated, this condition lasts for months, years and can lead to suicide.
Depression Panacea!
In the treatment of depression, pharmacotherapy or drugs (most often antidepressants) are used, the sooner the treatment is started, the easier it is to help the client. Psychotherapy in its various forms, from support to psychodynamic psychotherapy, is also an invaluable help. Although each of these means can improve the condition by itself, scientific studies show that the best long-term result can be obtained by combining both methods – it ensures the fastest and most durable response to treatment, better compliance, especially if the treatment is expected to last longer than 3 months, and improves the quality of life.
The expected time in the treatment of depression is 6 months. For drug-resistant forms (when the disease does not respond well to treatment) or repeated outbreaks, when the disease returns – even 2 years, including psychotherapy in parallel with drug therapy, because apparently the patient’s biochemical mechanisms are restored, but he remains naked in terms of psychological defense mechanisms. Without psychotherapy, using only medication for treatment, there is no opportunity for the old protective mechanisms to break down and new ones to form, so that a person can overcome stressful situations that can potentially lead to a relapse of the disease.
Sources:
- https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/detecting-depression#1
- http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/mental-health/data-and-statistics
- https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/286759-treatment
- http://www.heysigmund.com/wp-content/uploads/Why-Depressive-Thoughts-are-So-Enduring-1.jpg
- http://scd.rfi.fr/sites/images.rfi.fr/files/aef_image/la_depression_2_0.jpg
- https://financialtribune.com/sites/default/files/field/image/17january/12_depression_2_0.jpg
- https://themighty.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ThinkstockPhotos-504865906-1280×427.jpg?v=1499876251