Six Signs of Depression

Hello everyone, today's article I'm going to talk with you about the six signs of depression. So stay tuned.

We have recently came across one of the shocking news in Bollywood industry, Sushant Singh Rajput suicide depression case.

In addition, the reasons might be different, but the sad part is, many farmer's in our country are facing similar situation.

There are many reasons because of which many people fall victim in this horrific place, which includes relationship problems, loss of our loved ones, major setback in our business/jobs, living in a huge burden of loans, constantly pressurizing & criticizing from our family/friends for certain reasons etc. to name a few.

 Depression is the rising cause of disability in the world. In India, around 11% of adults behind every 1 lakh people falls in depression and commits suicide and the shocking part of it is majority of people lies below 44 years of age.

But because it's a mental disorder, it can be a lot difficult to understand than, say, high cholesterol.

One major source of confusion is the difference between having depression and just feeling sad. Almost everyone feels down from time to time.

Lets discuss about what exactly is the difference between sadness and depression.

Sadness Vs Depression

• Sadness is you are sad about something for few hours or few days. After a negative experience, your mood changes, and you become normal within 1-2 weeks.

• But when this sadness gets continually effecting you for weeks & months, it gets converted into Clinical Depression. Once you get stucked in Clinical Depression, it's difficult to come out of this situation back to normal state.

• So, sadness is a tangible feeling, while depression is a mental illness which feels you empty like nothing from inside.

• Sadness is a grief which slowly develops thoughts about giving up, Depression is weight that keeps you in bed. 

• Depression and sadness can sometimes look alike. But while it's easier to talk about what's making us sad, depression can be unexplainable and leaves us silent.

• In the end, depression keeps you stuck. Fun, pleasure activities no longer excites you. Instead, it isolates you from what you love.

• Sadness is a very real and tough emotion to process, but depression is an enormous numbness that requires professional help. 

• One important thing to keep in mind is, both feelings are valid but if someone opens up to you about their depression don't say "What's the big issue about that, I've been sad too."

• Getting a bad grade, losing a job, having an argument with someone, even a rainy day can bring on feelings of sadness. Sometimes there's no trigger at all. It just pops up out of the blue. Then situations changes, and those sad feelings eventually disappears.

• Clinical depression is different. It's a medical illness and it won't go away just because you want it to go. It stucks for at least 2-3 consecutive weeks, and significantly interferes with one's ability to work, play, or love.

लोकांना वाटते की उदासीनता म्हणजे दुःख.

लोकांना वाटते की औदासिन्य म्हणजे नुसते रडणे .

परंतु लोकांमध्ये चुकीचे समज आहेत.

औदासिन्य सतत शून्य होण्याची भावना असते.

भावनांना सुन्न करणे, जीवनाला बधिर करणे.

नैराश्यामध्ये आपण सकाळी उठतो ते पुन्हा परत झोपण्यासाठी.

• And because depression symptoms are invisible, it's difficult to know who might look fine but is actually struggling.

• According to the National Institute of Mental Health, it takes the average person suffering with a mental disorder over ten years to ask for help. But there are very effective therapy. Medications and treatment helps each other to boost brain chemicals. Other promising therapy, like transcranial magnetic stimulation, are under investigation, too.

• So, if you know someone struggling with depression, encourage them, gently, to seek outcome of these options. You might even offer to help with certain tasks, like looking up therapists in the area, or making a list of questions, so you can consult with doctor.

• To someone with depression, these steps can seem difficult to implement. If they feel guilty or ashamed, notice out that depression is a medical situation, just like asthma or diabetes. It's not a weakness or a personality trait.

• If you haven't experienced depression yourself, avoid comparing it to times you where feeling down. Comparing what they're experiencing to normal situation, temporary feelings of sadness can make them feel guilty and frustrated for struggling. Even just talking about depression openly can help.

• For example, research shows that asking someone about suicidal and depression thoughts actually reduces their suicide risk. Open conversations about mental illness help reduce stigma and make it easier for people to ask for help.

• The more patients seek treatment, the more scientists will learn about depression, and the better the treatment will get provided.

Six Major symptoms of Depression:

1. Feelings of hopelessness or constant negative mindset.

• This sign is most widespread with depression, it's because often times if any of you have been depressed, you know it can go on for a long period of time. And during that, we think "is it ever going to end? Oh my god am I going to feel like this forever?"

• And so that feeling of hopelessness and pessimism about our future is visible, is everywhere, right? We feel it all day. So that's why it's so important that if you're struggling with this and if you think "hey I might have some of these signs" you should seek help.

• If you don't already have a therapist, please reach out and get one. If you haven't already talked to your doctor about this please reach out and talk to them as well, because the sooner we get ahold of this, the better.

2. Restlessness or irritability.

• Constant feeling of sadness cause our mind to think as if we are belonging to a different universe and many a times, it develops a situation where we start treating our closed ones as strangers, due to fear, lack of trust etc.

• We may not be sleeping or eating well, and we tend to think people can just make us really frustrated and piss us off. So we're really edgy. Everything will set us off.

3. Loss of Interests in everything.

• Now, this is something that therapists and psychologists call anhedonia. 

• But what that really means in normal people terms is you don't have an interest or find pleasure in activities that you once used to like and find pleasure in.

• So if you used to love to paint and now you're like, "ugh, I don't even want to think about it". Or you used to have a book club you were involved in, or a sport you used to play with people and you no longer want to participate, that's the sign I'm talking about.

4. Overeating or Loss of appetite.

• Now, obviously, this is not otherwise attributed to an Eating Disorder. That's something totally separate. 

• If you've always had a regular healthy appetite and now you find yourself hardly eating in a day, or overeating all the day, till you feel sick.

5. Suicide thoughts or suicide attempts.

• This will have to deal with the fact that we're really depressed and things have been feeling really bad to us lately and so we may think about ending it all at once.

• If this is something that you are struggling with right now, please feel free to approach to your loved ones, go to the hospital, contact your therapist, do whatever you can. Because we have to keep ourselves safe.

6. Physical Pains.

• These are the symptoms which we feel pain in our bodies due to constant depression. Those are aches and pains, digestive issues, headaches. 

• The way that we can identify that these are associated with our depression and not a general medical condition is that we've sought treatment for them and still problems persisted.

• So we've gone to our doctor for the headaches or the stomach aches and they say everything is fine or give us some medicine and nothing really helps it, and we still feel it every day.

Conclusion:

• So, its plain and simple, these are only six signs and symptoms of depression, and everybody experiences things differently, right?

• But the great thing to know about all of this is that there's help out there. We can get out of this horrific situation and get better. 

• Depression is something that we can fight through, and can get out of it.
  

So, these all is about "What happens and how can we identify if someone is in depression."

Well, many of people will have question, "How can we prevent this situation and avoid becoming victim?"

Well, the next article will be exactly for this - How to avoid falling in Depression at first place.

Will post it shortly.

So stay tuned.😊

Also, do checkout my previous blog article named Mindset & feel free to express your thoughts.😊