Depression

Depression

Medical experts view depression as a disorder that affects the brain such in a manner that exhibits feelings of sadness and misery beyond levels that may be considered as being normal. A depressed individual is often very edgy and ill tempered, consequently leading to functional disabilities noted through the behavior patterns. Some behavioral symptoms related to depression are diminished interests and involvement in everyday activities, reduced focus, increased absentmindedness and self-loath (Beck & Brad, 2009). Additionally, the affected person will experience extreme grief, pessimistic thoughts, and ill moods that affect proper body functions/processes like eating, sleeping and libido. This will lead to physical conditions like insomnia, malnutrition, anorexia, hypersomnia, and fatigue among others. Depression therefore is viewed as the occurrence of various illnesses, stemming from one major condition. The condition expresses itself in varying degrees and therefore various categories of depression have been identified.

Major depression is the most aggressive form of depression and it is accompanied by unvarying feelings of misery. It kills a person in a period of six months. Atypical depression is a category of major depression that varies with ones surrounding; when a person is accompanied by happy people, they tend to be happy and vice versa. Dysthymia is termed as a mild condition of depression where the affected person oscillates between episodes of normal mood and depressed moods. Seasonal depression is caused by weather patterns where an individual experiences high spirits during sunny days yet feel depressed on a cloudy or stormy day (Beck & Brad, 2009). Scholars assert that depression results from physical, emotional, or social factors, or a combination of the same. Examples of such causes include marital issues, a solitude lifestyle, lifetime medical conditions, substance abuse, constant failure, traumatic experiences, monetary problems, lack of employment among many others.

Notably, all the identified factors are linked together by the stress element and coping skills therefore play a significant task in determining whether the stress levels heighten to depression. Depression varies in terms of age groups and gender. Young individuals, notably adolescents and the youth tend to exhibit depression in form of irritant mood patterns. The frequency of the irritations determines the level or type of depression that a young individual may be facing. Depressed adolescents are very short tempered and hostile to themselves and others. This often results to unhealthy relationships in family and school levels, and indulgence in substance abuse (Beck & Brad, 2009). Children too may experience depression with the occurrence of traumatic experiences like death of a parent but it can be treated easily. Within the older audience, depression is rarely an emotional case but rather a physical one: health complications, aging leading to fading beauty in women, inability to pursue some activities due to age and others.

Regarding gender, men tend to encapsulate themselves in their torment unlike women as they conform to cultural practices that attach feelings and mood changes as symbols of weakness in males. To cope with this, depressed men therefore tend to use inverse elements in their depression like aggression, drug abuse, and irresponsibility to project their condition. Women however are more expressive in their depressive states majorly to the cultural depictions as well as their hormonal system that again has been accepted as a normal event. Depression is therefore easily identifiable in women as opposed to men, with statistics indicating that 66.7 percent of reported depressed cases are from the female gender (Beck & Brad, 2009). Treatment for depression employs the use of prescriptions known as antidepressants that alleviate the stress and depression feelings in the body ferried by neurotransmitters. Antidepressants contain negative side effects and should therefore, be administered in controlled patterns to the affected individual. Psychiatric therapy acts as a complementary tool to medication in the treatment of depression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Beck, A. T., & Brad, A. A. (2009). Depression: causes and treatments. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.