Did you break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Getting all down in the dumps because you failed in the exam? Heartbreaks, loss of a loved one, failures and many other misfortunes can cause tremendous sadness to anyone.. But if your sadness stays for way to long and you seem to be unable to do normal activities, then something might be wrong. Depression is known to be the leading cause of disability all over the world. It affects about 121 million people and anyone can have regardless of age, gender and background.
To put it simply, depression means abnormally sustained feelings of grief, sadness or loneliness. It affects people so badly that it can lead him or her to be unable to take care of himself or herself. This disease can be debilitating and self destructive. This ailment has been around for a very long time and has even found its way to literature and many artworks.
The signs of depression can be categorized into two namely typical depression symptoms and the other behavioral symptoms. Typical Depression Symptoms mean those that are almost always seen in a depressed person like avoiding eye contact obvious feelings of hopelessness and despair. Some of the symptoms are outbursts of anger, easy irritability, and apathy when engaged in a conversation, apparent feelingsof hopelessness, guilt, misery and despair and would not look at another person in the eye when they are talking. An apparent sign would also be varying degrees of neglect like unwashed hair and body odor.
On the other side, biological Symptoms of Depression are those that are very physical most of the time. The depressed person could look tin or fat. They have heavy bags in their eyes due to irregular sleep patterns. They have no sense of feeling pressure and have so much less energy. They just want to be alone and keep his or her distance, which can be quite dangerous because the most common complication of depression is suicide. Other symptoms would include constipation, poor focus and some would have delusions.
But why is it important to know the signs of depression. Simply put it, knowledge means power and having learned them can help you evaluate yourself like your personality, has it changed or not. Recognizing symptoms early can help you get treated early. It can also help prevent you from falling into depression because as they say prevention is better than cure. Best of all, knowing such things can help you understand those people who have this disabling disease and maybe even help them in their recovery most especially when that someone is a loved one.
Depression has its stigma in society. But it is a common occurrence especially in todays world. This knowledge can help you better understand other people and even help them out of their loneliness.
