All of us sure know the “basic” definition of depression—a common medical issue which negatively affects how a person feels, thinks, and goes about his or her daily tasks. It is an actual disability that causes deep feelings of sadness that decrease a person’s ability to go through life enthusiastically. Two points below show how it is not just a fleeting issue of the mood but a real, deeply-entrenched disability with no specific cause and no specific cure.
Depression Happens To Those Whose Lives Seem Okay
Our understanding of depression causes us to believe that major depressive incidents bring about this feeling of sadness—failure in school, termination from work, loss of a loved one, a major accident, and the like. Sure, these could cause the depression of people under various circumstances, but the mysterious thing about the depressed is that the abovementioned incidents are not always the case.
It is critical that you communicate with your loved ones about your wishes, assets, and needs while you are physically and cognitively capable of doing so. — LuAnn Pierce, LCSW
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In many instances, we would know people who seem to have everything—family, friends, money, career, love life, and all—but still find themselves with depression. And the reason for it? They cannot even think about how it started.
Depression can affect their everyday life even when everything seems to be “okay,” and it is something they can hardly explain. Depression is a cloud, a dark one, which hovers above a person in ways they cannot easily fight back, sucking the interest and enthusiasm out them, immobilizing them from doing their thing with passion and grit. This concept cannot be grasped easily by someone who has not yet gone through a deep depression—and that’s the sad thing.
A depressed person’s memory and ability to concentrate will often be impaired, too; they may also be more irritable or feel restless all the time. —
Depression Happens To Those Who Look Okay
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People who are depressed tend to shy away from the world—even from their families and friends—in hopes of keeping their illness from being exposed and avoid any confusion, judgment, and further explaining. We can easily differentiate someone with colds from someone who has not, but we can hardly ever pinpoint at first glance someone with depression from someone who does not. Depressed people are like anyone you can meet in a day, smiling and going out as if they are indeed having a good time when, in fact, they can barely even wake up in the morning and go through their day.
However, just because physical signs do not surface for the depressed doesn’t mean they do not have it. Sometimes, the more that it is unseen, the more that it gets darker and suicidal thoughts become much more difficult to contain.
If you have a bout of depression or a depressive episode, that doesn’t stop the depression from coming back at some later time (even if successfully treated). —
Psychiatrists have, time and again, proven in various studies that depression has something to do with the brain’s chemical make-up. Soon after the person with depression gets deeper into the dark circle of the illness, the internal brain structure changes over time.
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However, depression is not permanent for all because some may experience it as a temporary episode, a season, or a passing moment, but for others, it lingers for a long time.
While a lot of things have already been written about it—and actually, a lot of people do experience it—depression remains to be an elusive topic to talk about. It still is a long way for society to embrace people with depression instead of judging them.
So the next time you check on your friends, please do them a favor: appreciate them and open up a safe space for them to speak out.