DEPRESSION

What is DEPRESSION?

⚠️MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER⚠️

DEPRESSION - is a disorder that afflicts over 10% of the world population. It affects over 30 million people worldwide, regardless of culture, age, gender, religion, race or economic status. DEPRESSION affects over 18 million adults (1 in 10) in any given year. DEPRESSION is the primary reason why someone dies about every 13 minites (over 41,000 people a year).DEPRESSION is the leading cause of disability for ages 15-44. But yet, we as a society know a little about it and happen to mock it, joke about it , laugh at it and call it - attention seeking, drama, weakness etc etc and make the DEPRESSED feel more helpless and worsen the situation in a worse way possible only because we just never bothered to actually try to know what DEPRESSION is.

Stereotypes tell us that DEPRESSED people are weak unless they happen to be a tortured artist. It may be difficult to understand DEPRESSION because it's invisible.

It's a disorder defined by thoughts, behavior and feelings rather than obvious symptoms like vomiting rashes and fevers. Those who experience DEPRESSION are all too familiar with comments from is misguided friends such as, "snap out of it" or "just get up and do something". ( you should never say those to a DEPRESSED)

Even those with DEPRESSION might have a hard time to understand what they are experiencing. And they often blame themselves for not being able to snap out of it.

To understand what depression really is we need to talk about symptoms:

First of all, DEPRESSION has symptoms related to how someone feels. These symptoms include nearly constant feeling of -
sadnesss,
anger,
guilt,
or hopelessness.

Next there is symptoms related to behavior. They include -
social withdrawal,
a lack of energy,
low motivation,
poor concentration,
sleep problems,
or significant change in appetite.

Finally symptoms related to thoughts include -
poor self-esteem,
thoughts of suicide
and lost of interest in regular activities or the activities that you used to love to do.

Symptoms of DEPRESSION must last at least one week, and they are often cyclical. This means the symptoms can come and go over a period of months or years.

A person who experiences DEPRESSION once is likely to have future episodes. It can be difficult to think of these thoughts, feelings and behaviors as symptoms too many of us. Because they are in our head, they can seem like decisions. It can seem like someone who is DEPRESSED has decided to sleep all day or if they have decided to stop spending time with friends because they have a bad attitude.

But remember what's in our head isn't imaginary. Our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by a complex series of chemicals in our brains. the exact causes of DEPRESSION are poorly understood. But we have an idea of factors that influence the illness.

We know that changes of hormones in the brain called neurotransmitters have a major effect on DEPRESSION. Many medication used in the treatment of DEPRESSION work by increasing the level of these neurotransmitters.

We also know that genetics play an important role on DEPRESSION. People who have a family history of DEPRESSION are more likely to experience the disorder. Just because your parents had DEPRESSION doesn't mean you necessarily will, but the chances are greater.

Finally we know that environmental factors play a role in DEPRESSION. living in poverty, experiencing a traumatic event or other stressful situations may trigger the disorder. Or, it can happen out of blue. That being said, DEPRESSION does not always have a clear trigger, which is extremely important to know. You don't always have to go through the worst to be DEPRESSED. Everything can go right and you can feel start feeling DEPRESSED out of nowhere. Which often leads to a person not understanding why they feel so down.

Treatment for DEPRESSION usually include Psychotherapy and medication either can work on its own. But the combination of both medication and Psychotherapy has been found to be the most effective.

In summary DEPRESSION is a disorder that's widespread but poorly understood. the symptoms can negatively affect a person's thoughts, feelings and behaviors to debilitating degree.

However, treatment includes medication, Psychotherapy or the combination of the two can manage to eliminate the symptoms of DEPRESSION.

☆Just a normal-formal thesis on DEPRESSION that is more about informations than emotions, depth and why it is a big fat deal and extremely  important to know about and carefully deal with. I'll try to bring those up on next chapters.