How to tell if you are depressed?
How do you know if you are depressed? I'm gonna try to explain it on this article.
Hi! I am RevaBrielle, a nurse psychiatrist who helps people for mental health and self improvement.
So even though we don't have a blood test to diagnose or to prove that you are depressed, it isn't still a matter of guess work. There is a cluster of symptoms that are associated with being depressed.
In order to be diagnosed with depression, you must have five of the following symptoms for at least two weeks and also all of this symptoms is present at least most of the day and present most every single day. So they must not be fleeting.
You must have five of the nine symptoms:
Depressed mood
people may tell they are sad, hooeless or even empty
In children and adolescence, they can be more irritable then what you would expect just from regular childhood upset and to a moody teenager
Can't enjoy things
Things that you enjoy just you don't give you pleasure anymore
Weight Loss/Gain
5% decrease or increase of appetite
Insomnia/Hypersomnia
Insomnia is having trouble sleeping and staying asleep for less thatn 5 hours
Hypersomnia is sleeping more than 10 hours. This could be continous or a total of nightly pleasure nap
Slowed/Restless
Some people knows that they will have an episodes bacause they can feel their limbs are getting really heavy
Low energy
You don't have any power to do something
Worthless or Excessive Guilt
you have no value or use
Poor concentration or focus
Depression is a huge disruptor on your ability to concentrate/focus. And if you can't focus or pay attention, you will have trouble remembering things.
Suicidal thoughts
Depression can distort your perception of the future. Things can look very bleak and get to the point where you just wanna end the pain.
Difference between Active and Passive Suicidality
Examples:
Supposed you are crossing the streets and you thought if you got hit by a car, i will be fine with that. That is passive suicidality. You don't have a plan on ending your life but the prospect of doing something or having someone to kill you is an attractive option for you.
People became actively suicidal if they are formulating a plan in their head, even though for a moment they are holding back from acting on it. Active suicidality is an emergency and should be treated in a hospital or a crisis center where the person will be on a safer environment.
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Here are some symptoms that i commonly see or observed that don't fit neatly on to the list that is provided above.
This are the feelings that is everyday is hard and this can result of having anything done. You just can't bring yourself to attend the task.
Frequent crying.
You could have a short fuse all the time that makes you irritable or easily angered.
There are so many symptoms that can be asso iated with depression. But there is one thing that is to be answered, how much all this symptoms affect your life or how much dysfunctions did it cause?
One person can have several symptoms listed above but there still going to work each day and participating in social activities but they don't feel happy inside. They go to this social things and put up in a fake smile but yet feel very empty while they are there.
There is another person who may have trouble getting out on bed and not going to work or some people may have stop bailing. This is the person that whose probably gonna get pull out of this without the help of some health professional whereas the first person may be able to slug through without any kind of treatment and symptoms may eventually past.
Treatments can be therapy and or medications. I'm gonna create some articles about this in the future.
So that's it for now. Thank you for your time readibg my article and if you want to be updated, please subscribe.
Depression is an illness, not a weakness
Depression is an illness! It is not a weakness or some fault of your own. This is what i am gonna talk about in this article.
Hi! I am Reva Brielle, a nurse psychiatrist, i am new here at readcash and my goal here is to raise awareness on mental health and self improvement. If this interest please subscribe!
It pains me when someone tells me about their depression symptoms and say that they just feel like weak or feel like they failed. Worst yet, they have other people telling them "You should just get it together". In fact you might think about yourself "why i can't pull it together? I don't have a reason to be depressed".
Well, Yes! You don't have the reason to feel depressed anymore that you don't have the reason to have diabetes or highblood pressure.
This two disease is used because they are similar in sense that they both have a biological process that goes on but there are still external factors that can affect them.
Example: if you have borderline diabetes or highblood pressure you may be told to lose weight or cut down salt and maybe you don't need medication.
This might work for a while but eventually at some point, you still may develop the disorder. And no ones gonna fault you or most people probably or not gonna say "you just need to pull it together or else you wouldn't have gotten that diabetes or highblood pressure.
In some people, it doesn't even matter genetically to predisposed of it, similarly with depression. There is a genetic component that makes people more at risk of developing depression if they have a relative with it. And similarly, there is an environmental factor that may influence them getting depressed or can trigger an episode.
But even in the abscence of any trigger, you can still develop depression. At the height of your career, top of your life, everythings is going perfectly and you dropped into depression. So why this happen?
The term that is probably cliche at this point is chemical imbalance. Well unfortunately even if it is overused it is true. The main three brain chemicals that affect your mood are norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. Those three brain chemical are associated mood and thus why medications targets this chemicals.
So what happens is, you have dropped on your level of serotonins, norepinephrine or dopamine and whem this happen you will have changes in your brain.
Remember, brain is like your other organ like liver, heart and kidneys. So if your kidneys malfunctioned, you're gonna have trouble with your blood pressure
Well, your brain has the control of everything in your body. It is your central processing unit. So if the part of your brain that controls your body (ex. Left arm) has a been damage, you might get weakness or even be paralyzed.
So what if the part of your body that does not function is the part that controls your emotions? If that's not functioning properly , you're gonna have poor emotional regulation. Make sense?
I think when it comes to emotions, its hard to wrap your mind around, the fact that your brain controls everything. And also come from an organ to function correctly. And were human beings, our bodies don't always function properly.
I think it get harder to buy in, if you perceive depression is a medical illness. Is what we can have days where you're in a funk, you feel sad or something bad happens like failing an exam or lose your job, you'll feel bad for a day or two. And people will say i'm depressed and it will be hard to separate that or see the difference between that and the actual illness of depression.
So, how ling does depression last?
I used to say this all the time based on what i read about a diagnostic book. A typical depression last for 5-6 months or more. This is not just last for a couple of days, weeks and months and then its gone.
The 5-6 months is either with or without treatment, so if you did nothing you could be depressed for 5 months and just gonna get better on your own.
This is not a great idea though because there is a concept called the kindling effect. This is where the more episodes your brain experiences with bo resolution, the more likely you will have a more future episodes that are worst.
Some people can develop chronic depression with symptoms that last for 2 years or more. This people don't have a really nice period of remission. They just gonna stay in this low state of really, really depressed or not that bad but still a luttle bit depressed.
If you get depressed, will it come back?
Well, the answer is probably. Newer literature says that shen someone recovered to a depression episode, you have a 50% chance to have an another one within a year and then 85% chance of having one in some point in your life. It could be 5 years from now or it cpuld be 20 years from now. Of course the longer you go without, the less likely you will have another episode.
Depression is a recurring illness. It is not something that cured per say. You could be in the minority of people who have an episode and never comes back and its wondwrfyl if that is your case. If its not, you are in the majority of people and there are millions of peiple who have depression and you just don't know because they don't wanna talk about it.
Depression caan recur. It can be treated and in fact it's better to be treated properly because of the kindling effect and the greater chance of having episodes if you go untreated for a long periods of time.
So if you are one of the people who is being depressed, better consult or talk to someone before it gets worst. Here are some list of depression hotline number
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255 (TALK)
The Samaritans: (877) 870-4673 (HOPE)
Next time, i'm gonna do an article about the symptoms and how do you know if you're depressed. So if you want to be updated. Please Subscribe!
@Revabrielle