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Depression is a common mental health challenge that typically involves feelings of sadness, loss of interest in people, places or activities, and generally affects your ability to function with daily life activities. Depression can be mild, but sometimes it could also be severe.
Many people in life may have experienced intense feelings of sadness, or a depressed mood, but to conclusively be depressed, there's a couple of things you will have to notice about yourself, or someone else, to know for certain. Here's a few sign posts that can help us tell:
To begin with, someone that's really going through it, will typically have constant feelings of sadness, and lose interest in activities they once enjoyed a whole lot more. Furthermore, someone who's not feeling a 100% will often exhibit drastic changes in their sleep patterns, appetite (unrelated to dieting regimes), increased fatigue, and feelings of self-doubt or guilt.
Depression may cause you to have a hard time concentrating, thinking, decision making, and in more extreme cases, it may elicit thoughts of suicide and death.
If you feel someone close to you may not be okay, try to keep an eye out for whether they have an increased inability to sit in one place, if they pace around a lot, and suddenly have delayed speech or slowed motor movements. All of these should be fairly easy to spot.
Like any other mental health challenge, depression has both myths, and facts that surround it. Take this for example, about 16% of people will experience depression at some point or another in their life (this is a fact).
A common solution is to drown yourself in work/school/home life, and that in turn makes you distracted and feel somewhat better. But, not addressing depressed moods gives rise to underlying issues, and chances are that a relapse will be more intense and harder to manage.
Secondly, you may hear that it isn't really a medical condition. This is false because depression itself can alter your overall brain function. Thirdly, “men cannot experience depression”.
This is usually owing to men’s resistance to talking about their feelings. But more often than not, men will usually turn to binge drinking, drugs, occasional outbursts of anger, and high irritability, among others.
Unfortunately, our culture may influence the phrase “depression means weakness.” Remember this could literally happen to any one of us. And how would you take to being called weak? Also, some people may say that seeking professional help means that you will be on medication all your life. It's true that the chances of a relapse are high, but seeking help increases the likelihood of it not occurring again, or as often.
Other myths associated with depression are that depression is for people growing old, that talking about it just makes it worse, or that you should just "work through it."
Okay so what do we know for certain? In a nutshell;
• Anyone can get depressed
• Depression can be experienced little by little, and not always all at once
• Family histories of depression do not mean you will definitely have depression
• Positive thinking can be a huge help (you could try a little bit of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
• Exercise is an excellent activity to keep you reengaged in things you may have lost interest in
• It DOES get BETTER
Getting Support
If you or anyone you know may be experiencing what feels like depression, please try or suggest one of the following;
• Seek therapy. PsycHealth Zambia has a team of professional therapists/counsellors who are experienced in talk therapy, art therapy, CBT among others, that could assist
• Take a test. In addition to seeking therapy, your therapist may refer you to a facility that conducts assessments that not only highlight the likelihood of depression, but are also host of a psychiatrist who is on hand to administer any medication where necessary
• Join a support/focus group
• Share your experience about how you’re feeling with someone you trust.
It could make you feel a whole lot better, and it could help you save a friend.
