Or is there someone who you’re close to who may suffer from clinical depression? This depression is also called major depression and unipolar depression.
Some of the symptoms of this kind of depression are feeling extremely sad, beginning to lose sleep, poor appetite, weight loss, unmotivated to do anything, less active, low self-esteem, irritable and miserable to such a degree that the person no longer has ability to function normally.
When the mood fluctuations do not go away for months or years and you have several symptoms described above, the depression has become a medical condition. Having this mental health condition is different than just feeling sad, grief or the “blues” after a life event that caused pain, loss and disappointment.
People with the normal “blues” may experience some signs of depression, but having these kinds of blues does not interfere with their daily activities and performance…plus they move out of this stage without treatment.
Estimates are that clinical depression affects 15 to 20 percent of the USA population and many people do not get the treatment they should have because they either are misdiagnosed or they can not afford insurance.
Hormonal factors may contribute to the increased rate of depression in women, particularly factors such as menstrual cycle changes, pregnancy, miscarriage, postpartum period, pre-menopause and menopause.
Many women also face additional stresses such as responsibilities both at work and home, single parenthood and caring for children and/or partner and for aging parents.
This very serious mental illness cannot be diagnosed with a blood or urine test. No x-ray or MRI can confirm or deny the existence of clinical depression. By 2020, it is expected that there will exist an epidemic of mental disorder depression worldwide.
Depressive illnesses often interfere with normal functioning and cause pain and suffering not only to those who have a disorder but also to those who love and care about them.
Serious depression can destroy family life as well as the life of the ill person. But much of this suffering is unnecessary. While there is no cure for this disorder, currently, clinical depression is considered to be a treatable illness.
An related issue is that if you use antidepressant medications, this type of treatment can be a “hit or miss” proposition, where the first medication doesn’t work and then others have to be tried.
Sometimes the doctor will try a variety of antidepressants before finding the most effective medication or combination of medications. Sometimes the dosage must be increased to be effective.
The other issue is the fact that pharmaceutical drugs depression treatments often have side effects that can be severe for anyone experiencing mental disorder depression. If you are getting along with your antidepressant medications and you are feeling that some of your symptoms are improving, you should probably stay with the treatment.
It seems that more women are affected than men with clinical depression, perhaps at least twice as many. However, men commit suicide more frequently because of mental disorder depression.
These figures are skewed towards women at an early age, but as man and woman get older, they actually even out with the figures. When both sexes reach their 50’s, the figures become about equal.
People who experience clinical depression may have several episodes during their lifetime. Episodes of this illness come and go. Frequently, they last from several weeks to several months and they are followed by relatively normal periods of mood and behavior.
Clinical depression is a major concern in the United States as it relates to work productivity. Frequently, employers do not understand or know how to deal with someone with mood disorders.
It can only be diagnosed based on symptoms that a person suffers from. The expectation is that if a person is suffering from clinical depression, they must experience several mental disorder depression symptoms.
They are either suffering from severe mood fluctuations or from an inability to experience pleasure in life. If a person has at least five or more of the following symptoms for at least a couple of weeks, they are considered to be suffering from clinical depression.
Major depression symptoms are:
• Unhappy feelings, sad, anxious, overwhelmed, crying frequently and no interest in most enjoyable activities that used to be fun,
• Feelings of guilt, hopeless and worthlessness for no apparent reason,
• Low energy and fatigue most of the time,
• Poor appetite and weight loss or appetite increase causing you to gain weight (eating too many sweets and carbohydrates),
• Low sex drive, trouble maintaining close or romantic relationships,
• Substance abuse, alcohol consumption,
• Low self-esteem, lack of confidence,
• Frequent suicidal/death thoughts,
• Irritable, critical, dissatisfied and restless,
• Difficulty concentrating, memory lapses, cognitive impairment, and inability to make decisions,
• Difficult to explain physical ailments that frequently do not go away with treatment – headaches, back pains, digestive problems, chronic pain, frequent colds, constipation, stomach problems and more,
• Trouble making decisions, remembering, overwhelmed easily and poor concentration.
These mental disorder symptoms include the condition where a person receives no pleasure from their daily activities. They’re always feeling empty.
Some people will show a significant weight loss or gain due to a major change in appetite. They frequently must deal with extreme tiredness and lack of energy. Some have to deal with a sleep pattern disruption that can be due to requiring too much sleep or an inability to sleep enough.
There can be difficulty concentrating, which is often accompanied by memory problems. Many of these people have to deal with a feeling of being alone and a feeling that no one cares.
This may lead to thoughts of death (though not always related to suicide or planning to end one’s life) that are also typical. Many people suffer from a feeling of great sadness or the inability to feel anything.
These thoughts can be accompanied by the lesser symptoms of a feeling of worthlessness, neglect of personal care, crying and sensitivity to sound, irritability or physical illness.
If someone you know has more than five of the above symptoms, they’re likely struggling every day. The best thing you can do is encourage them to seek help from their health care provider.
Natural products that can be helpful for clinical depression.
Anti-depressants are commonly used to treat mental illnesses, but the risks and side effects of these drugs are often a major concern. often, people using these drugs stop using them, some experience sexual dysfunction, blurred vision, dizziness and constipation. In some cases, the idea of suicide worsens with the antidepressants that are supposed to help you.
References about clinical and psychiatric depression
The Depression Sourcebook by Brian P. Quinn, PhD.
Subjects included in this resource include psychotherapy, bipolar disorders, depression in children and the elderly, clinical depression, psychiatric depression, mental disorder depression, borderline personality disorder depression, medications and treatment options such as exercise and nutrition.
Healing Depression & Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs (Paperback) by Gracelyn Guyol.
This book covers causes, effective non-drug treatments, exercise, hormone imbalance, discusses drug treatments, side effects and benefits, homeopathy, nutrition, mental disorder depression and borderline personality disorder depression.
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