From the perspective of a "Depressed Mind"!!

According to the "American Psychiatric Association", "depression is a serious mental illness that affects your daily functioning in a negative way".It is also known as "Clinical Depression" as well as "Major depressive disorder". It badly interrupts one's life and day to day functions. It impairs the relational & occupational life of a person. If we talk about the symptoms, then depression includes its symptoms that may vary from "mild to severe".

According to DSM-5, if five or more than five symptoms of the following remain consistent for 2 weeks (or more):

• A consistent feeling of sadness/depressed mood.
• Loss of interest in daily routine chores.
• Loss of weight or gain in weight without any apparent other reason/ increase or decrease in appetite.
• Energy loss or feeling of getting fatigued almost every day for two weeks.
• Feeling of guilt or worthlessness.
• Consistent, recurrent thoughts of death. Or consistent suicidal ideation or any suicidal attempt.
• Inability to decide or concentrate on any task.

Clinical depression is diagnosed if the person has any of the above-mentioned symptoms and significant impairment in his/her occupational or personal areas of functioning is seen.

After a brief introduction to depression, I would like to share how a depressed mind sees the world & life. Me, being a clinical therapist has come across a number of clients who had been depressed and were on recovering stages of life. From the perspective of a depressed mind, life seems colorless & hopeless. A depressed person feels highly overwhelmed and distressed easily.

So, this article will provide you with information that will help you understand clinical depression.

Difference between Sadness & Depression!

First, you need to understand that clinical depression is different from general sadness that people may feel for different incidents or events from your life. The emotional reaction to a sad event is normal & common. But a person recovers mentally after a while when that event is over. Or he could get sad when he thinks about it.

Sometimes, it gets hard to distinguish between sadness/grief and depression because both are the psychological states. And both of the emotional reactions occur after a distressing event. But you can identify the difference as the normal person will recover after a day or two. Or he/she still gets pleasure for daily activities & life. But if you see a person who is consistently hopeless or in a state of distress for more than two weeks and losing interest in almost all the activities.

Or you are noticing any changes in his physical health as well. For instance, he is losing appetite or there is a significant change in his weight. Or his sleep is disturbed to the level that there is an impairment in his personal/occupational life.

Causes behind depression:

Clinical depression could occur for different reasons. For instance, Loss/ death of a loved one, rejection from someone, failure of a relationship, etc.

There are other factors too that must be considered while diagnosing someone for clinical depression. i-e:

• Environmental Factors
• Genetic Factors
• Personality Factors, etc.

References:

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), Fifth edition. 2013