The Ramifications Of Depression

Depression is an illness that causes a person to experience persistent, ongoing feelings of sadness and losing of hope. Loss of interest in much of anything is also common. Day to day living can be affected to a large degree, because it affects how a person thinks and feels, and behaves in regard to his or her own actions and how relations with others happen. Sometimes a deeper depressive state can affect how a person feels about continuing to go on living.

When a person is in a depressed state, it is not a sign of ”weakness” and it is not something that a person can just “pick themselves up” and move on type of a solution.

Depression is something that is really a longer term condition that can improve with the proper medication and counseling.

Everyone goes through some challenges and hurdles in life. Some people get hit so hard that they can’t envision ever coming out of it. While most people may have temporary setbacks, only to have the wherewithal to bounce back, others are not able to and they experience situations that are much more than just mere sadness.

Depression is described by some who have gone through it as “living in a black hole” with no hope of escaping their unending prison. No one who has not gone through it can really understand it. Some depressed individuals just feel sad, unattached to anything with no purpose at all to their existence. They are apathetic and empty. Sometimes they are angry and aggressive.

Depression will flat mess up a person’s daily routine in that a person’s daily life becomes saturated with the overwhelming feeling that nothing is important at all. Helplessness and hopelessness take over any self sustaining desire to improve or take hold of the situation.

When should a person seek help? If any of the foregoing symptoms are present and if they persist to the point that there seems to be no way to overcome them, then a person should ask for help. If there is a real depth the helplessness and a foregone conclusion that there is nothing that can be done, then it is time to reach out for help.

There can be physical changes such as weight loss, loss of appetite and changes in sleep patterns that should be very noticeable to loved ones. If spouses and loved ones notice any changes like these they should intervene and seek help for the afflicted person.

When a person becomes clinically depressed, they are on the road to possible suicide and need to be watched closely. Suicide is the ultimate act of depression, born from the feelings of hopelessness and the wrong conclusion that suicide will solve things in a final way. Any talk or indications of suicide by a depressed person should be taken seriously in that it is actually a cry for help.

Depression is treated by medication and counseling and is a long term project. People on the outside need to realize that it is a medical condition just as cancer is a medical condition and should be taken very seriously.