Depression

Some people who are lonely or shy or struggling with social situations also feel depressed. This article will give a brief overview of depression, mainly focusing on the more mild variety. If you have more severe depression you may need to see a doctor or a therapist to get additional support.

Symptoms of depression

There are lots of variations to depression in terms of severity, mix of symptoms, duration, and problems that can occur alongside it. If I started quoting the official criteria for all of them it would make this article pretty unwieldy. I'll go with something simpler.

Here are symptoms. To receive an official diagnosis someone would need to be evaluated by a qualified professional.

The psychological symptoms of depression can include:

• A depressed, sad mood, naturally.... Although that's not always the case. Sometimes people feel more irritable, grumpy, or flat, rather than down in the dumps.
• A loss of interest in things you used to enjoy. A feeling that you don't get pleasure from them any more.
• Reduced ability to think, concentrate, and make decisions.
• A lack of motivation or initiative.
• Low self-esteem and a sense that you have a lot of flaws.
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt.
• A pessimistic, negative view of the world.
• A sense that things are hopeless and aren't going to get better.
• Thoughts or death or suicide. This doesn't necessarily mean the person wants to kill themselves though. They may just keep having thoughts of death, but actually be worried about how morbid their thoughts are getting.

In general depressed people view the world through a 'dark-tinted filter'. Their thoughts display many cognitive distortions that help maintain their gloomy outlook.

Depression can also cause physical symptoms such as:

• Lack of energy/feelings of fatigue/getting drained really easily.
• Behavior seeming slowed down overall, or kind of agitated overall.
• Weight loss due to a lack of appetite and interest in eating, or weight gain due to increased appetite and eating due to comfort/boredom.
• Problems sleeping due to: Difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, waking up too early, or sleeping too much.

Anxiety and depression sometimes come together as a package. This may be because a common underlying problem leads to both moods. In some cases someone may become depressed because of the difficulties their anxiety is causing them. Or someone could develop anxiety in response to the effect their depression is having on their lives.

Basically the more of these symptoms you have, the more severe they are, the more they interfere with your life, and the longer you've had them for, the worse your depression. The physical symptoms also tend to be more prominent when someone's depression is stronger. Someone who's mildly depressed may be able to go on with their lives, but just feel down. A more severely depressed individual may sleep 12 hours a day, and lay on their couch in a daze when they're awake.

Depression may come in episodes. Someone may be depressed for six months, come out of it, then fall into another funk a year later. Some people also have a kind of chronic low grade depression called Dysthymic Disorder (people who have had this for a very long time may mistakenly think it's just their personality, and can be shocked with how different the world seems after they've been treated). Depression is also a feature of Bipolar Disorder (i.e., Manic Depression). Here a person has episodes of depression and mania, an extreme elevated mood.

Causes of depression

Some depression seems to come out of nowhere. This may be because it has a biological or hereditary cause. However, it often does occur in response to problems in a person's life. If someone has real issues they're struggling with, it's only reasonable that they might become sad and hopeless in the face of them. If someone is going through a naturally stressful transition (e.g., moving, ending a relationship) they may become down temporarily and then start to feel better as they adjust to their new situation.

Treating depression

Depression, especially mild depression, is treatable and millions of people find relief from it each year. What's tricky is that when someone is in the thick of their depression they may genuinely believe they have no hope of feeling better. They may also not have the self-confidence and energy and motivation to try and begin improving their situation. Sometimes the hardest part is getting things started. Once the ball is rolling and someone starts to feel a little better it's usually easier for them to keep going. It helps to start with very small, achievable steps at first and go from there.

Self-Help approaches to coping with depression

There's a lot people can do to try and alleviate their depression on their own. This is especially true if their symptoms are more mild. I'm from the school of thought that it never hurts to see a professional such a doctor or a therapist though, especially if some of your symptoms or thoughts are troubling to you. I also think it can be better to go see someone when things are mild and nip them in the bud rather than waiting for the problem to get worse, when it may be harder to treat. Going to a professional is also the only way to access medication, if that's a treatment option you're open to.

Most of the advice on coping with depression is in other, more dedicated articles on this site. People can do a lot to feel better by making lifestyle changes such as exercising more, purposely doing enjoyable things, and addressing the legitimate problems in their life. I cover that in this article:

Lifestyle Changes That Can Improve Mood

The second overall way to address depression to learn to handle the negative thoughts it brings up. Many of these thoughts can be cut off at the source, and will clear up on their own, by elevating your mood overall through the lifestyle changes mentioned above. Directly tackling maladaptive thoughts can help as well. I talk about that in these articles:

Challenging Negative Thoughts
Accepting And Rolling With Negative Thoughts