Depression

Most of us have bad days that make us feel sad, upset or hopeless. This is a perfectly normal reaction to things such as losing a loved one or becoming unemployed. These events are part of life and it’s normal to feel "down", cry or mope for a while. Feelings like this only become a problem when they won’t go away.

There are many myths and misconceptions about depression. One of the problems faced by mental health practitioners is that the word "depression" is applied to so many experiences that the real meaning of the condition gets lost. Everyone had bad moods and times of sadness but that’s all many people know about clinical depression-bad moods and times of feeling "blue".

Like any other disease, there are different degrees of depression and different treatments for each one. The most serious of these is Major Depression. As implied by the name, this type of disorder can be very severe. It can creep up slowly or be the result of a significant trauma in life although some patients develop it with no obvious causes.

Depression is the number one cause of disability around the world, affecting 100 million people at any given time. In the United States, 7-10% of adults are clinically depressed, about 17-20 million people. It's difficult to gather accurate numbers, as many people ignore or deny their symptoms for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, of all the people who are recognized as clinically depressed, only one fifth will receive appropriate treatment even though it can have a very negative impact on their work and home life.

Most of us don't think twice about the elderly being depressed but it's a serious problem in that segment of our population. Of the 35 million adults in the United States over the age of 65, 2 million of them suffer serious forms of depression and about 5 million have less severe forms of the illness. That figures out to a whopping twenty percent of the elderly population!

One of the costliest illnesses in America is clinical depression and it hits hard in the workplace. Depression causes a rate of absenteeism that translates to two hundred million lost days of work per year at a cost of over 43 billion dollars! Treating the disease and lost production costs add up to a staggering effect on the economy, not to mention the human misery involved. Statistics show that after family crisis or stress, depression costs businesses the most in employee sick days.

No one knows the exact cause of depression but doctors have found an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brains of patients with depression. Not finding a similar imbalance in those who do not suffer from depression, they theorize that it’s one of the many causes of the disease. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that carry signals from the brain to the nerves; when a shortage or excess of these occur, the body is thrown out of balance and depression is often one result.

If you've ever had a depressed friend or loved one, you know how difficult it is to deal with. Support and encouragement are essential to recovering from depression.

It’s very important that you don’t make light of the disease. Our first reaction to someone who expresses misery or unhappiness is often "oh, c'mon, it's not that bad!" To a person with depression, that harmless little phrase tells them that their feelings aren't important, their problems will never be understood and they themselves aren't valuable. By validating their feelings and listening to their concerns, no matter how petty they seem, you're comforting them and even giving them confidence.