Major Depression

Depression comes in many forms covering the spectrum from mild to severe. At one end is very mild depression which is more like a continuing state of sadness. You don’t stop eating or refuse to participate in any social activities. You probably don’t enjoy anything you agree to do. Major depression, on the other hand, can be debilitating. You not only don’t have any joy in your life, you might not even want to get out of bed.

When you see commercials for major depression on television, the person is portrayed as lifeless. He or she just sits and stares or doesn’t interact with family. The wife may talk to the husband, and he doesn’t even hear because the mind is in a black hole. It’s like being slowly suffocated and unable to come up for air.

Major depression can affect everything in your life. It impacts how you view yourself. It can interfere with your life activities. It can destroy relationships with family and friends. It can even cause physical harm. If you stop eating and lose too much weight, the situation is exacerbated. Already immobile from major depression, the lack of proper nutrition erodes energy levels even further.

Major depression is also called major depressive order. It’s diagnosed when you have certain symptoms that most likely occur every single day. There’s no break from the depression. These symptoms include things like inability to sleep, chronic fatigue, low or no self esteem, and being able to make even small decisions that were regularly made in the past. The symptoms will last over 2 weeks and show no abatement as time goes by.

The symptoms of major depression are about changing patterns of behavior and thoughts. Things you could do in the past are now too difficult. You don’t really care about anything around you and just don’t want to be bothered. Instead, someone with major depression dwells on all the negative thoughts about him or herself.

One of the worst symptoms of major depression is the development of thoughts of suicide. That’s why it’s so important to intervene with treatment when you suspect someone you love has major depression. The person may not even recognize what’s going on. But if you have any thoughts about suicide, then you need to get help immediately.

The good news is that treatments will work with major depression. Severe cases of depression are almost always treated with medication combined with other forms of help. Antidepressant medications work very well, and once they begin to take effect you will find yourself ready for other treatments such as cognitive and behavior therapy.

Depression Medications

Depression medications are serious business, because they’re strong drugs that impact your brain functioning. They’re not to be taken lightly and some are even addictive. There’s a reason why all antidepressant medications are strictly controlled. They need to be taken only under the supervision of a doctor.

Not everyone wants to turn to depression medications for relief though. Each person must work with his or her doctor to determine which course of treatment is right for your situation. Some people try all other forms of treatment first while others begin a combined treatment of medication and another therapy. These other therapies can include group therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy, and even self-help therapy to name a few.

So how do you know when taking one of the depression medications is the right choice? The first things most doctors will consider is how long your depression has been occurring and which therapies you have tried. Other factors in the decision to use depression medications include religious values, other medications currently being taken, pregnancy and propensity for drug dependency. As you can see, it may be a very complex decision to use depression medications.

In our society, we too frequently see drugs as a quick fix for everything that ails us. But even if you and your doctor decide to try drugs, they won’t work instantly. There are no quick fixes for depression. You will probably have to take the medications for many months and it will take weeks before you notice a change in your depression disorder. In the meantime, you want to continue any other therapies currently being used to treat your depression.

One of the main considerations for deciding to use depression medications is the severity of the disorder. If you have bipolar condition or are depressed at least 2 hours every day, you have severe depression. If your depression is preventing you from working and creating other serious problems in your life, medication might be used in the beginning. The nice thing about medication is it can be stopped down the road. You can take it for the months you need it and then as other therapies work, or your depression abates, you can withdraw from the drugs.

Treatments other than depression medications offer a change in thinking and lifestyle for the long term. Using medications is a short term solution except in the most severe cases. When you learn positive self-talk or positive thinking, they’re techniques you can use anywhere.

When you use depression medications, it might be necessary to try more than one in order to get the best drug combination. You also must be aware that most of them have side effects, but these side effects are different for everyone. That’s another reason why you need constant doctor supervision.

Depression Test

Sometimes it can be difficult distinguishing between the normal emotional ups and downs that people experience as part of life and depression. But when you begin to suspect that you should feel much better than you do about yourself and your world, taking a depression test can provide important direction.

Depression does not have one form. It can take many different forms in terms of symptoms, and no two people are alike. But there are certain symptoms that frequently occur and can serve as measures of your emotional status. If nothing else, taking a depression test can help you decide if you need to see a doctor. Another benefit of utilizing a depression test as a barometer of your emotional state is that if you are experiencing depression, it may be hard for you to define your symptoms.

The depression test is merely a checklist of symptoms you identify as being applicable to your situation. It can be amazing how many people are actually unaware they have a mild case of depression or don’t realize how much their life has changed due to depression. There are so many manifestations of depression that it’s impossible to list them all.

The depression test can be used by the person who suspects they are experiencing depression or by family or friends who aren’t sure how to recognize depression in someone they love. It’s important to identify depression as early as possible, because depression will get worse. The general rule of thumb is to consider if you have experienced several of any of the following symptoms for longer than 2 weeks.

• Thoughts your life is spiraling out of control
• Believing your life is unimportant
• Convinced no one would miss you if you were to die
• Can’t make any decisions – even small ones
• Don’t anticipate anything at all as being enjoyable
• Feeling ashamed all the time
• Experiencing frequent and unexplained crying
• Can’t enjoy being with friends or attending events
• Stopped exercising
• Giving up things once enjoyed
• Avoiding people whenever possible
• Feeling alone all the time
• Doesn’t enjoy being with family anymore
• Feeling like no one understands you
• Losing appetite
• Unable to sleep or sleeping too much
• Having no energy

The depression test can include many more symptoms, but this gives you a good idea of the kinds of things you would take into consideration. As you can tell from the list, depression affects a lot more than just your emotions. It can affect your body and your relationships too.

Once you take the depression test, the next step is to begin tracking the mood changes. By creating a mood diary, there’s now something very tangible and quite convincing to show a doctor or therapist. It also provides you a clear picture of what’s happening and that can be very therapeutic in itself.

Depression Medication

Sometime depression medication is deemed necessary by the doctor, especially in the case of severe depression. But medication is not an instant cure by any means. It takes weeks before the medication benefits are felt and researchers aren’t sure why it takes so long. But there are certain depression symptoms that warrant medication.

• Having suicidal thoughts or preoccupation with death
• Experiencing psychotic delusions
• Have severe depression that has overwhelmed your life
• Have recurring depression that hasn’t responded to other treatments

Sometimes depression medication is prescribed when other forms of treatment have already been tried and are not proving to be effective. Depression can be elusive because so many different things can contribute to its existence. Medication can be a last resort form of treatment in these situations.

Most doctors will not prescribe depression medication until psychotherapy has been tried if at all possible. Medication is seldom the first choice of treatment unless there are no alternatives available to the patient or the patient is considered to be a threat to him or herself.

There are several different kinds of depression medicine commonly prescribed today. Basically, depression is considered to be the result of the brain not producing the right amount of chemicals needed for proper functioning. The result is increased feelings of stress and anxiety among other effects. Medication attempts to restore balance in the brain so neurotransmitters operate properly.

The most common depression medication prescribed will be one of the following.

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI)
• Tricyclics
• Monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAO inhibitor)

• Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor Medications
• Benzodiazepine Tranquilizers (BZ)

These are a lot of fancy names for antidepressants. There are even other medications that can be tried if any of these depression medication choices are not acceptable. Varying side effects will have to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to continue a particular medication. For example, some of them are addictive. That means when it’s time to get off the drug, you must slowly withdraw.

There is another class of drugs that is not considered an antidepressant. Instead, the drugs are actually mood stabilizers. They don’t affect the same chemicals in the brain like the antidepressant drugs. Instead of impacting serotonin or dopamine, they have an impact on glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid.

Not everyone chooses to take medication, but instead try to find alternate treatments. Also, there are times when taking medications is not appropriate. For example, when you’re pregnant or taking a drug for another medical problem you might not want to use antidepressants. Some drugs cannot be safely mixed together. In addition, sometimes the side effects of the depression medication are so uncomfortable that people choose to quit taking the drug.

Depression medication is an effective form of treatment under certain conditions. You must work with your doctor to determine which medication will best suit your situation.

Clinical Depression Symptoms

Clinical depression symptoms can be identified and documented based on medically accepted research. Depression can hide behind many behaviors and moods making it difficult to diagnose at times. Not everyone simply sits and stares out the window or refuses to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed. Some people may not even be aware they’re experiencing a mild form of depression. So how do doctors determine you are depressed?

Studies of clinical depression have researched behavioral, cognitive and physical states and activities in order to determine what causes depression. Clinical depression symptoms that are physical often begin in the brain. In a nutshell, the brain works by sending messages between neurons using neurotransmitters. These transmitters are controlled by chemicals produced in the brain.

• Dopamine
• Serotonin
• Norepinephrine

There are other chemicals used in the transmission process, but these are the primary three. When these chemicals are not produced in the right quantity, the neurotransmitters don’t work properly. This affects your emotions, feelings and thoughts. When these chemical processes lead to depression, there are many symptoms manifested. The key to identifying depression often lies in comparing current behavior to past behavior. For example, a person who previously enjoyed social activities and now won’t leave the house might be depressed.

There may be other physical clinical depression symptoms. They include sudden changes in weight or unexplained high blood pressure.

Other clinical depression symptoms besides the brain chemical levels are related to thoughts and actions. A person who exhibits clinical depression symptoms will most likely have bad thoughts frequently. They see life as bleak and getting bleaker. They don’t look forward to anything and don’t want to participate in normal activities. A person with depression often sees their life as full of only mistakes and lost opportunities and this translates to hopelessness. If you see yourself in this description, then you are probably experiencing a level of depression. Simply stated – life is never hopeless.

Other clinical depression symptoms are related to behavior. Someone who is depressed might cry a lot or exhibit signs of anxiety. A depressed person may withdraw from all activities, or even when they do participate, they are obviously having no fun. Other behaviors may include short tempered responses to people trying to engage them in conversation or a desire to just be left alone all the time.

Finally, clinical depression symptoms can also be very apparent. A person with bipolar disorder or mania clearly needs treatment. If you have thoughts that are always dreary and self-critical, have lost interest in your family or friends or have unexplained physical changes, you should seek treatment. These are just a few of the signs of depression.

What is Depression?

Sometimes it can be difficult distinguishing between the normal emotional ups and downs that people experience as part of life and depression. But when you begin to suspect that you should feel much better than you do about yourself and your world, taking a depression test can provide important direction.

Depression does not have one form. It can take many different forms in terms of symptoms, and no two people are alike. But there are certain symptoms that frequently occur and can serve as measures of your emotional status. If nothing else, taking a depression test can help you decide if you need to see a doctor. Another benefit of utilizing a depression test as a barometer of your emotional state is that if you are experiencing depression, it may be hard for you to define your symptoms.

The depression test is merely a checklist of symptoms you identify as being applicable to your situation. It can be amazing how many people are actually unaware they have a mild case of depression or don’t realize how much their life has changed due to depression. There are so many manifestations of depression that it’s impossible to list them all.

The depression test can be used by the person who suspects they are experiencing depression or by family or friends who aren’t sure how to recognize depression in someone they love. It’s important to identify depression as early as possible, because depression will get worse. The general rule of thumb is to consider if you have experienced several of any of the following symptoms for longer than 2 weeks.

• Thoughts your life is spiraling out of control
• Believing your life is unimportant
• Convinced no one would miss you if you were to die
• Can’t make any decisions – even small ones
• Don’t anticipate anything at all as being enjoyable
• Feeling ashamed all the time
• Experiencing frequent and unexplained crying
• Can’t enjoy being with friends or attending events
• Stopped exercising
• Giving up things once enjoyed
• Avoiding people whenever possible
• Feeling alone all the time
• Doesn’t enjoy being with family anymore
• Feeling like no one understands you
• Losing appetite
• Unable to sleep or sleeping too much
• Having no energy

The depression test can include many more symptoms, but this gives you a good idea of the kinds of things you would take into consideration. As you can tell from the list, depression affects a lot more than just your emotions. It can affect your body and your relationships too.

Once you take the depression test, the next step is to begin tracking the mood changes. By creating a mood diary, there’s now something very tangible and quite convincing to show a doctor or therapist. It also provides you a clear picture of what’s happening and that can be very therapeutic in itself.

Anxiety Depression

Some people seem to have personalities that just seem more prone to causing anxiousness. The problem is constant stress and anxiety can lead to anxiety depression. People who experience anxiety on a regular basis have been found to have some common traits. They include the following.

• Always striving for perfectionism
• Feeling like a failure when goals are not met
• Nervous
• Often feels guilty about what they did or did not do
• Doesn’t like to hear any criticism about their self
• Displays obsessive traits
• Invents things to worry about

If your thoughts are always leading you to self-criticism, the result can be the development of anxiety depression. If you realize you have the anxiety prone personality, you can prevent a slide into depression. But even if you already have anxiety depression, you can learn to think differently.

Anxiety depression is often self induced. In other words, you’re so hard on yourself that you never come out ahead in your thoughts. You want to be perfect and no one can achieve perfection. You want to be all things to all people in your life, and that’s not possible either. But because of these feelings and thoughts, you’re never satisfied with your efforts. So you begin to tell yourself that you’re a failure or worthless.

People experience different levels of anxiety depression. For example, you can have a mild case that affects your attitude toward yourself, but doesn’t interfere with your activities. You can also have a severe form of anxiety depression that drives you deeper and deeper into the well of dissatisfaction. Treatment options include both self help and recognized therapies such as cognitive and behavioral. But the key in any treatment is to change your self perspective.

One of the common symptoms of anxiety depression is the belief you can’t express yourself, because then people won’t like you. That lack of self-esteem makes you always put yourself last. You also may have expectations that are way too high making success impossible. During treatment, you learn to set reasonable goals and then how to accept the results of your efforts in a positive manner.

Anxiety depression can be debilitating if left unchecked. You have to learn to like yourself first. Everyone has special talents and abilities including you. If you put your personal energy into taking advantage of those abilities rather than suppressing them, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can rise out of your depression. Thoughts can be self-defeating and act like a trap. Open the trap and let those negative thoughts out and you can look at life from a whole new perspective.

Chronic Depression

Chronic depression is a disorder that lasts for a long time such as 2 years or more. It can refer to ongoing depression that never subsides or to depression that comes and goes. Chronic depression is not necessarily severe depression. It’s just depression that continues over time.

Chronic depression is often treated with medication after other therapies have failed. A therapist will try behavioral, cognitive and group therapy before medication will be described. Using prescription drugs is usually the last treatment choice. But when you don’t respond to these other treatments, then the doctor may decide to prescribe an anti-depressant. It’s important to understand though that the other treatments will continue in conjunction with taking medication. Using prescription drugs is not normally a permanent solution except in the most severe cases.

There is a type of depression called dysthymia which is usually chronic depression. It’s chronic but seldom severe. The symptoms of dysthymia include the following.

• Inability to concentrate
• Constant guilty feelings about your life
• Suicidal thoughts
• Low self esteem

This chronic depression is long lasting and ongoing. You might experience these symptoms every day for years. There are essentially no extreme ups and downs like you find in other forms of depression. It’s more a lack of joy in your life and feelings of inadequacy that hold you back. As you can see from the list of symptoms, dysthymia is not as debilitating as other more severe forms of depression. It seems to stay more thought based.

Dysthymia can occur in at any time of life. This chronic depression has no particular age association which means children, teens or adults can develop this disorder. Because the person doesn’t exhibit overt physical or emotional problems, it can be difficult to diagnose – especially in children or teens.

Dysthymia needs to be treated as soon as possible, because it is a chronic depression. It can lead to more severe depression as times goes by. This is true for all forms of depression as a matter of fact. Depression does not heal on its own. If you are chronically depressed, you need to seek treatment because the depression will continue without intervention.

Chronic depression is depression that lasts for more than 2 years. Most people who experience depression are able to seek treatment and end the downward spiral of depression. But for some reason that medical researchers still can’t explain, there are people who don’t respond to treatment. If you are one of them, there’s still many alternatives you therapist or doctor can pursue in order to get you the help you need.

Identifying disorders such as dysthymia can be difficult. If you go through life never feeling joy or pleasure, then you should take a depression test. Then you should consider how long you have been experiencing your symptoms. Identifying chronic depression is the first step in the cure for the disorder.

Clinical Depression

Doctors have specific terms for medical issues and clinical depression is one of them. Medical research is always ongoing and the results of the research are published for the medical community. This is true for all medical conditions being studied. The goal is to find cause and cure by first identifying common symptoms. When you have clinical depression it simply means you fit the current definition of what medical science considers true depression.

Once you are diagnosed with clinical depression, a variety of treatment options become available. They include cognitive and behavior therapy, interpersonal therapy and medication. Some components of the therapy can be undertaken by you without a doctor. For example, you can learn to stop spiraling negative thoughts about your abilities and self-esteem. You can keep a journal or make yourself become more active. But for many people, their clinical depression must be treated by a doctor.

Doctors who treat clinical depression often combine medication with one or more of the other therapies. The goal is to keep the medication level as low as possible with eventual cessation. Cognitive therapy has proven to be quite effective as a depression treatment during controlled studies. With cognitive therapy, you learn to start loving yourself by changing your perceptions.

Interpersonal therapy involves counseling which focuses on the people or events involving other people that may have triggered your depression. It can also simply work to improve your self esteem so you have better interpersonal relationships. Behavior therapy, on the other hand, helps you change your self-defeating behavior. You learn to enjoy doing some activities again. Behavior therapy is often used with cognitive therapy to treat clinical depression.

There are several medications commonly used in the treatment of clinical depression. They include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and tricyclics. Anti-depressant medications is almost always prescribed when someone indicates they have suicidal thoughts. In other situations, it may be prescribed for a short period of time to give a person a head start on cognitive and behavior therapy.

Naturally, only medical doctors can prescribe medication for clinical depression. But there are different kinds of psychotherapists who offer the other treatment options. These include clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Psychiatrists can prescribe medication and provide cognitive, behavior and group therapy. When you have mild depression, you can also utilize the services of a trained counselor.

Clinical depression is depression that fits the mold so to speak. You have all the signs and symptoms of depression as identified through medical research. All depression is treatable and there’s no reason for anyone to feel alone or helpless. There are many different options for treatment and they all work. So if you suspect you are experiencing depression, it’s important to get help right away.

Causes of Depression

There are many theories about the causes of depression, but none of them are definitive. In other words, even medical researchers to this day don’t know for sure what causes depression. They continue to study the disorder though and great progress has been made towards narrowing the search. In the final analysis, a person gets depressed because of many causes and not one.

Current medical theories cover the gamut of possibilities. Some doctors believe depression might be an inherited trait. In other words, genetics plays a role in whether or not experience depression. It’s not uncommon to hear people say they have several members of a family who have been diagnosed with depression over the years. There’s not a “depression gene”, but we all inherit certain personality traits. In addition, some genes apparently affect the production of serotonin in the brain and are suspect as a cause of depression.

The possible causes of depression also include possible childhood experiences. For example, if you were physically, emotionally or sexually abused then you might have very well developed your dark thoughts at a young age. It would be easy to see why you view the world as hopeless. Another theory says that parents who are excessively strict and inhibiting raise children who are unable to socialize normally. This can lead to social dysfunction and withdrawal.

Still another one of the causes of depression is related to biology. The body is designed to respond to perceived threats quickly. The brain produces chemicals that enable the body to either take a stand or flee (fight-or-flight response). When these chemicals are not produced at the right time and in the right quantity, the result can lead to a chemical imbalance and depression. But related to this biological cause is the ability of the body and mind to handle stress. If you have suppressed feelings related to stress in your life, depression can ensue.

There are also many medical conditions reported to be causes of depression. Hyperthyroidism can lead to panic attacks and anxiety and affect your ability to cope with life. A sudden tragedy can also cause depression. If someone you love dies, your spouse leaves you or you are fired, depression can develop. Your self-talk and coping skills and ability to handle stress all impact how you respond to grief and tragedy.

Another one of the causes of depression is the use of drugs. Drugs like cocaine and amphetamines over stimulate the brain and lead to anxiety and depression. Some drugs are known to cause brain damage also and the brain is left in a perpetual state of imbalance.

Human beings are complicated and so are the causes of depression. Finding the cause in your life will take a determination to seek the source of your depression through one or more of the effective treatments.

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