What is depression?
Despite common misperceptions, depression is not a weakness or a character flaw, but a serious illness that causes changes in one's body, mood, and thoughts. It may result in feelings of emptiness, crying without any apparent reason, and loss of pleasure from daily life. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide. Each year, about 19 million American adults are affected by depression (NIMH, 1999).
Depression manifests itself through a variety of symptoms. The most common ones are a deep feeling of sadness and a marked loss of interest or pleasure in activities. Other symptoms include:
- Changes in appetite that result in weight losses or gains unrelated to dieting
- Not being able to sleep (insomnia) or oversleeping
- Loss of energy or increased fatigue
- Restlessness or irritability
- Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
- Difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decisions
- Thoughts of death or suicide, or attempts at suicide
Notice that you can be depressed without actually feeling sad. Instead, a lot of people become irritable, angry, or lose interest in activities that they enjoyed before. For this reason it may not always be easy to recognize depression in yourself, a friend, or somebody you know.
If several of the described symptoms persist for 2 weeks or longer, then the person might be experiencing clinical depression and should seek out professional help. If you want to get a very general idea about your own mental health status, you can take a brief online screening test for depression. However, only a health care provider or a psychiatrist can make an accurate diagnosis and offer recommendations for treatment. Therefore, the test is NOT a reliable tool to find out if you are depressed or not.
As for most disorders, there are various types of depressive disorders and different levels of severity.
