Depression
April 9, 2021
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Introduction:
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Around 300 million people around the world are diagnosed with depression. A common misconception of depression is that depression is the same feeling as sadness and grief. However, there are many factors that make depression one of the leading causes of suicide in the world.
What is depression?
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Depression is a common and serious mental illness that affects your feelings, actions, and thoughts; this can lead to a variety of emotional, mental, and physical problems. Depression is different from many negative feelings because depression causes people to have thoughts of suicide. To elaborate, depression causes many major physical symptoms like fatigue, decreased pain tolerance, and aches all over the body. Along with that, many people also experience angry outbursts, loss of interest in activities, anxiety, feelings of worthlessness, and many more.
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What are the causes of depression?
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While there are many causes of depression, some of the most common causes are biological, environmental, and internal. Some biological causes are as simple as genetics; if there’s a history of depression in the family, then people may also get the gene of depression. However some complicated causes are the effects of chronic illnesses; by having a chronic illness for most of their whole life, people are more likely to change their entire lifestyle, lose hope and feel vulnerable because of what’s happening to them. On the other hand, one of the most common environmental causes for depression is experiencing trauma. By experiencing trauma, people will likely experience many psychological episodes, including depression as an after-effect because they don’t feel the need to live anymore. Additionally, a leading internal cause of depression is self-esteem issues. By having self-esteem issues, people view themselves in a negative manner and that’s all they focus on. Throughout time, people start to view themselves as worthless because they can’t match their “perfect” person.
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What are the effects of depression?
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While depression can already be painful enough to deal with, the physical, mental, and emotional effects can be equally, if not more, difficult. The most serious physical effect is the weight fluctuations; these are caused by the loss of appetite or binging too much as a way to cope. Because of these fluctuations, the body will not be getting the nutrients, which will affect other body systems since the systems don’t get the right nutrients to function. Next, we have our mental effects; one of the most significant effects is the higher risk to get other mental illnesses. Many people who have been diagnosed with depression have reported having episodes of many other illnesses. These illnesses include anxiety, bipolar disorder, and social phobia. This happens because the mind is already vulnerable because of depression, so there’s a higher chance of obtaining other mental illnesses as well. Finally, we have emotional effects, but the most common are mood swings. These mood swings range from being upset and crying to getting angry and breaking everything. Mood swings happen because all the emotions in the body are imbalanced, so they are out of control for the person.
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How is depression treated?
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Finally, the last step in this journey is finding treatment and getting help. The two most common forms of treatment for depression are either medication or therapy; while people choose one or the other, sometimes both can be taken simultaneously. For therapy, people talk to a trusted mental illness specialist; this can be a psychologist, counselor, therapist, or psychiatrist. During this therapy session, people try to cope with their symptoms and learn to overcome the illness. In order to help make others comfortable, they have many therapy plans, like cognitive therapy, interpersonal therapy, and psychodynamic therapy. The second treatment plan is medication through prescriptions from specialists or using OTC medication. People use medication because it helps improve their mood emotions since the medication helps balance the chemicals in the brain. The most common medication for depression is antidepressants, Fluoxetine, Citalopram, and Sertraline.
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Works Cited
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UnityPoint Health - Des Moines, UnityPoint. “10 Common Myths & Misconceptions About Depression: UnityPoint Health - Des Moines.” 10 Common Myths About Depression | UnityPoint Health - Des Moines, 18 June 2018, www.unitypoint.org/desmoines/article.aspx?id=a655c7e2-fe37-4817-887b-c762ff455b23
Bhandari, Smitha. “Causes of Depression: Genetics, Illness, Abuse, and More.” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression.
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Torres, Felix. What Is Depression?,
www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression.
“Depression (Major Depressive Disorder).” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 3 Feb. 2018,
www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007.