What is Depression?

Everyone has felt sad or blue at some point in their life. Those feelings usually pass within a short period of time, but depression lasts longer (i.e., for at least 2 weeks) and interferes with daily life.

Depression is considered a mood disorder that causes people to feel helpless and hopeless and with the tendency to beat up on themselves. Depression also impacts your behaviors, or in other words, what you do and don’t do. For example, depression can interfere with working, eating, and sleeping.

Depression can also cause physical symptoms like chronic pain, stomach aches, and headaches. It can even trigger anger and long periods of restlessness. Ugh!

Simply put, depression can be a drag and exhausting. People with depression may find it hard to participate in everyday activities and may withdraw from friends and family. Depression can even leave you feeling like life is not worth living, triggering thoughts of death or suicide.

As you can see, depression can be a debilitating condition; however, please know that depression is highly treatable!

This isn’t a condition you can simply “shake off” or one that you must suffer with throughout life. In fact, people that believe there is no solution, suffer needlessly. 

Licensed psychologists are highly trained to help people recover from depression. Getting help is very important because untreated depression can last for a long time and worsen other illnesses. If you are one of the many undiagnosed people, please consider giving therapy a try.

References: 

National Institute of Mental Health www.nimh.gov

American Psychological Association (APA) www.apa.org 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5)