Column of a psychotherapist and 10 questions that will help you understand what is happening to you.
To begin with, let us recall that the diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders or mood disorders is dealt with by the field of medicine, which bears a terrible name for many – psychiatry.
Physician-psychotherapist of the international medical center “ON CLINIC”
Although no one is intimidated by the concept of “soul”, its ancient Greek analogue “psyche” haunts many. This is due to the prevailing false belief that a mental disorder necessarily means insanity.
It will be useful for our courageous readers, who admit that they have a soul, and therefore a psyche, to familiarize themselves with information on how to distinguish a bad mood from depression.
Even if you suspect yourself of depression, then do not rush to be upset and declare yourself crazy.
Any person is subjective in assessing their well-being and condition, therefore, false interpretations of any diagnostic tests are possible.
There are also dubious interpretations of psychologists, most of whom do not have sufficient experience in working with depression and prefer to redirect depressed clients to psychiatrists.
So, if you suspect depression, it is better to immediately contact a specialist of the appropriate profile – a psychotherapist, who is also a psychiatrist.
It is this combination that allows avoiding diagnostic errors and choosing the optimal treatment.
Moving on to the questions, let’s start with the fact that a person can immediately accurately determine:
1. Is there a reason for my bad mood?
2. How long does my bad mood last?
If the answer is unequivocally yes and you know the exact cause of your bad mood, and it has not been more than two weeks since the mood change occurred, then you are most likely a victim of your acute stress reaction. But if the reason is unknown to you, or if much more time has passed after the onset of the situation that served as the reason for the decrease in mood, then there is a reason to think about depression.
The next two questions worth answering are:
3. What happens to my appetite?
Appetite can be temporarily lowered for very different reasons, but in the absence of depression, people are more likely to “seize stress”, which ultimately leads to excess weight. If this is a noticeable and prolonged lack of appetite, accompanied by weight loss, then you are at risk for depression.
4. What happens to my sleep?
Sleep disorders, or rather the “sleep – wakefulness” regime, are familiar to everyone.
And the truth is, it is difficult to imagine a person who has never experienced difficulty falling asleep against the background of any unpleasant situations and related thoughts.
But with depression, it is not only falling asleep that is disturbed.
Sleep can become superficial and intermittent, and early awakenings can occur, in which it is no longer possible to fall asleep. In general, this for a long time and greatly disrupts the quality of sleep; a person does not experience a feeling of rest after sleep.
5. What happens to my mood during the day?
A bad mood can overtake a person at any time, but it is with depressions that characteristic daily mood swings can appear, when a person is depressed in the morning, and by the evening the mood evens out somewhat. This is believed to be due to daily fluctuations in the levels of certain neurotransmitters that affect our mood.
6. What happens to my physical condition?
Everyone knows that the level of energy that a person feels in himself can vary greatly under the influence of various reasons, for example: lack of food, fatigue under the influence of physical exertion.
But it is also a feeling of fatigue, which is directly related to the emotional state of a person.
If it is not so difficult to get a person out of a state of fatigue against the background of a bad mood by offering various pleasant stimuli, then getting out of depression through tempting offers is almost an overwhelming task, like pulling a hippopotamus out of a swamp. In addition, when stimulation is stopped, a depressed person immediately returns to his “swamp” when physical activity is sharply reduced or absent.
7. What happens to my performance?
Of course, our bad mood directly negatively affects performance, reducing the speed of thinking, concentration and memory. It is more difficult for us to solve normal work tasks, but, as a rule, there is no fear and refusal to do the work.
With a decrease in working capacity against the background of depression, a person may feel inferiority, experience a sense of guilt and fear due to the impossibility of performing seemingly familiar tasks. This can lead to avoiding any work that requires even the slightest stress on cognitive functions.
8. What happens to my appearance?
The way a person takes care of himself, his appearance, can also indicate differences in his condition. For many of us, a bad mood can be corrected by going to a beautician, spa treatments, shopping, etc.
In depression, the person usually cares little about his appearance. Being immersed in his experiences, he ceases to take care of himself as before, ceases to observe the rules of hygiene, sometimes without even noticing it.
9. What happens to my interest in the outside world?
In a bad mood, we may not love the whole world and try to isolate ourselves from it. But still, man is a social being, and the lack of communication soon begins to weigh on us.
Moreover, in a bad mood, we are more likely to seek help and moral support from relatives, friends and relatives.
And getting what we need, we return to a comfortable state of mind.
But in the case of depression, things often happen differently. A person begins to fenced off more and more from the environment, ceases to communicate, closing in on himself, on his experiences. Violation of socialization only aggravates the depressive state, creates a vicious circle, from which it is sometimes very difficult to get out without external help and support.
And finally, the last question from our top ten.
10. What will happen next?
In a bad mood, a person is nevertheless able to look into the future and assess the prospects for the development of his life, the current situation. Often, dreams and fantasies about the future make it easier to cope with any stress and cope with a bad mood.
But with depression, a person is not able to get out of the captivity of his negative thoughts and ideas. The future is drawn in black, begins to scare, and the person stops thinking about it, avoiding additional unpleasant experiences, but at the same time sinking more and more into the abyss of depression, into the depths of his hopeless, meaningless existence.
With such a loss of life perspective, a person may have thoughts of unwillingness to live, which can lead to the most unfavorable consequences.
All this sounds sad, but there is a way out!
If in your answers to these questions you were able to make sure that your bad mood does not carry threats, then we congratulate you! If you have doubts about your condition, then this is not yet a reason for worry. The best thing you can do is to resolve possible doubts by seeking the help of a psychotherapist. Even if signs of depression come to light, this is not a sentence at all.
Modern medical research convincingly proves that most people can cope with depression with depression even without the help of medication. Timely psychotherapy and social rehabilitation in recent years have been recognized by the medical community as effective on a par with long-established antidepressants.
The choice is up to the person!