Treatments for Depression

There are many treatments for depression and usually more than one is used at a time. The most common treatments today include the following.

• Cognitive therapy
• Group therapy
• Medication
• Behavioral therapy
• Interpersonal therapy

Most of the treatments for depression include keeping a journal as a first step and even an activity log when the depression is severe enough to prevent you from completing critical activities. A log can be an important tool for both you and/or your therapist in order to identify the triggers of depression. It can also be a good way to get your life back on track.

One of the benefits of using journals and logs in the treatments for depression is that it forces you to undertake an activity to improve your life. This can be very important when depression has interfered with your ability to think or function normally. For example, if you keep a log of what you’re feeling and of your thoughts, it becomes easier to identify the negative thinking that spirals out of control. A journal can reveal things such as feelings of failure or anxiety. With the identification of the thoughts, a therapist can then help you seek the cause of the lack of self esteem.

An activity log is a useful log during any of the treatments for depression for keeping track of what must be done in your life to keep it on track. People with depression often decide they don’t care anymore about any one or any thing. Unfortunately, this can have dire consequences if you don’t pay bills or deposit money in your bank account. Some people with depression don’t just neglect themselves either. They neglect important tasks such as picking up the kids at school. The can even decide eating is too much trouble. That’s why some people with depression can have sudden and severe weight loss.

When people get depressed, the mind focuses on dark and deep thoughts that are usually self-critical. If you tell yourself you’re unable to do anything right, the next logical thought is: why try? That is how depression works. It gets deeper and deeper if left untreated. Except for medication, the treatments for depression assist people with changing their thought patterns so they see themselves as capable and positive.

It’s hard for someone who’s never had depression to understand how deep the mental hole can get. When you keep a journal and activity log, you can learn to set simple goals that are easy to meet. The slow decline into the black hole is reversed so you can begin the upward climb to the light. It’s done one step at a time. There’s no instant cure for depression. Even medication takes time to work.

Signs of Depression

There are so many different signs of depression which means it sometimes continues until the indications form a pattern. But the sooner you recognize depression in yourself or someone else, the sooner you can get treatment. Depression needs to be treated whether it’s mild or severe or anything in between the extremes. Depression doesn’t disappear on its own and will only get worse.

There are some basic and common signs of depression. They include the following.

• No feelings of self worth or low self esteem
• Doesn’t like to be around other people which can include family
• Doesn’t anticipate doing anything including enjoyable events
• Lack of concentration
• Feelings of hopelessness
• Feeling sad all the time
• Suicidal thoughts
• Inability to make any decisions

A person can have one or more of these signs of depression. It’s natural to feel sad for a few days or to have stressful days. It’s normal to have some days when life may seem a little harder than you think it should be. Depression is something entirely different. It’s not natural to feel you are worthless or that people in your life wouldn’t miss you if you were to disappear. It’s not normal to be sad for longer than two weeks while continuing to experience constant fatigue and lack of interest in anything around you.

The signs of depression can be very noticeable in many cases. Someone who is depressed may cry a lot for no apparent reason. In severe cases, a person may refuse to get out of bed. In milder cases, the person might be unable to make the simplest decision or constantly feels guilty about something. People with depression can have trouble functioning at work or at home.

Other signs of depression may not be severe and are harder to identify. For example, you can experience depression triggered by an event such as a death in the family or loss of a job. It can be a real shock and not everyone is able to adjust well. You might still appear to function normally but the signs of depression are there. You might cry at the most unexpected times or begin a spiral into despondency that makes you unable to function eventually.

On the other hand, bipolar disorder has very obvious symptoms. While in a euphoric state, bizarre behavior such as making obviously foolish and harmful decision becomes apparent. While in a depressed state, the person feels hopeless and all the frenetic activity stops. This happens over and over again and can even happen within a day.

The key to identifying if someone is depressed is to watch for patterns or continual worsening of suspect symptoms. If this goes on for longer than 2 weeks, you should get professional help for you or your friend or family member.

Teen Depression

Sometimes teenagers can be hard to interpret because they have many normal ups and downs as they grow into adults. But teen depression is a growing problem as evidenced by the increasing number of teen suicides. It’s also not unusual to hear parents of teenagers involved in violent acts in the schools say the teens had been depressed. But it’s sometimes hard to differentiate between the normal emotional variability due to hormonal changes and true depression.

As parents of teenagers, it’s important to watch for changes in behavior that don’t make sense and seem to worsen as times go by. For example, teenagers that have always enjoyed being with friends and then suddenly stop socializing may be experiencing depression. Losing interest in activities is one of the major signs of depression. Teen depression may reveal itself in other ways too.

• Loss of interest in sports activities when sports have always been important

• Sudden drops in grades at school

• Change in eating habits such as loss of appetite or ravenous gorging

• Comments indicating low self-esteem

• Sudden fluctuations in moods

It would be nice if an adolescent would just tell a parent exactly what he or she is thinking and feeling, but that often doesn’t happen. Instead the parents have to be acutely aware of unusual behavior that indicates something’s not right in their child’s life.

There are ongoing medical studies trying to find physical reasons for teen depression. There has been a correlation found between obesity and depression. That only makes sense when you consider the symptoms of depression in children. For example, an obese child can have feelings of low self worth due to peer taunting. Teenagers who are depressed may eat a lot of “comfort food” seeking solace for their feelings of isolation. Teenagers can also be experiencing problems at school and not be telling the parents at home. As a parent you think things are going well only to discover there’s been an ongoing problem between students or student and teacher.

Adolescents can be very sensitive human beings. The teenage years are formative years, and when problems in socialization occur, it can be very demoralizing. In addition, sudden mood swings can also indicate there’s another problem in the teen’s life. If a teenager is being abused physically or sexually, teen depression can be the response.

Identifying teen depression can be difficult, but never impossible. When you suspect your child may be experiencing teen depression, you should try to talk to the child first. If the adolescent won’t talk to you then professional therapy may be in order. It’s important that some kind of treatment be instituted, because the lack of self esteem can be devastating. Depression deepens and doesn’t just disappear once he or she reaches adulthood. Your teenager can become a depressed adult next.

Of course, one of the best treatments you can give your child is always lots of love!

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 and Anxiety

Millions of people throughout the world are suffering from depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety has thus become a serious mental disorder. According to research both these disorders coexist with each other and in rare cases they are different from each other. It has been discovered that almost 70% of people suffering from clinical depression are also prone to anxiety. This is indeed a serious phenomenon that requires urgent attention. Similarly people who have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder are also suffering from depression simultaneously. In fact depression and anxiety overlap each other so frequently that it forces psychologists to consider both these disorders as facets of the same illness.

It’s natural that people become sad or harbor sad feelings at some point in their lives. There can be many factors contributing to this feeling like retrenchment, loss of a loved one, shattered aspirations or other failures. All these factors may cause a person to experience symptoms of depression. In the same way when people experience stressful situations continuously in their lives they suffer from anxiety and prolonged exposure to such situations leads to a serious disorder. Up to a point it is normal to experience such feelings but you never know when it might snap you into two.
If you are feeling a kind of uncontrollable sadness or utter hopelessness, excessive tiredness, loss of appetite and sleep and the same is bugging you for more than a few weeks, you must realize then that you are suffering from clinical depression. Similarly if your feelings of anxiety outweigh the stresses that you are currently experiencing, or you are experiencing panic attacks frequently then you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder. In most cases anxiety and depression are experienced together and in such cases treatment for both these disorders cannot be provided simultaneously but one at a time.

As explained, in many cases depression and anxiety may overlap each other as such treatment for these two disorders is also given based on this fact. People with anxiety disorders are usually treated with antidepressant medications. For treating both depression and anxiety psychologists apply different types of psychotherapy (cognitive and behavioral therapy) which have resulted in healthy recovery for patients. However sometimes depression is treated first depending on cases. To help patients cope with anxiety, a form of therapy known as exposure therapy (patients are exposed to gradually increasing stress factors) is applied. Sometimes it may me necessary to treat depression first if a person is suffering from both depression and anxiety as depression can sap his/her energy leaving them unable to cooperate. If it is not done so then anxiety therapy would not be effective on that person.

Usually anxiety attacks a person at an early age particularly during childhood or adolescence whereas depression sets in during the later years. In such a case it would be better to treat anxiety so as to prevent depression from developing in adulthood. Depression and anxiety are in fact are ‘in the same boat brother’.