How to tell if I’m depressed

According to statistics, 20% Russians are diagnosed with depression. Actually affected in 2–3 times more, it’s just that it is still not customary for us to go to a doctor with “mental” problems.

She has three classic symptoms:

• decreased mood,
• slowing down of mental activity,
• decreased physical activity.

But any organ can react to the disease with a wide variety of bells: headache, dull or acute pain, sensation of a lump in the throat, attacks of suffocation, insomnia or drowsiness, pain in the stomach, intestines, constipation or indigestion, frequent urge to go to the toilet “in a small way” , aching or stabbing pain in the heart, rapid heartbeat, changes in blood pressure.

• Apathetic – this is when you do not want anything. Or, as doctors say, the patient has lost interest in life. Actress Brooke Shield describes his feelings like this: “It seemed to me that I would never be happy again, as if I was falling into a big black hole.”
• Disturbing – there is anxiety without any reason.
• Agitated – the experiences are so deep and strong that a person gets into an excited state because of these experiences.
• Hidden – the classic symptoms are erased, but the head hurts, the heart is pounding, the legs give way, there is no strength for anything, etc. Actor and director Steven Fry spoke: “I may have looked happy, but inside I suffered from hopeless depression.”

What symptoms appear depends on the personality type. A doubting person will be visited by anxiety, an inactive person – apathy, a hysterical person will begin to demonstrate how bad he is.

Almost half of patients have latent depression. And this is the most dangerous thing. Neither the person himself, nor his loved ones understand what is happening to him, and meanwhile the disease is gaining momentum, and then, if it is not stopped, starts life in a deep peak. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and did not suspect that she had a common female misfortune – postpartum depression:

“I faced one of the darkest and most painfully grueling chapters of my life. For about five months, I felt nothing for the child – neither love, nor tenderness, and I was like a zombie. Now I know that depression can have different shades and depths. “

Latent depression is also insidious because even doctors cannot always catch it. A person goes to a therapist with complaints of stomach pains, and the stomach is being treated, not the nerves. Only 4% those suffering from depression are correctly diagnosed by therapists, the rest are left without the necessary help.

Endogenous depression arises from internal causes. That is, there is no real reason why you could be upset, for some reason you want to lie on the sofa, turn away to the wall and cry. In most cases, the predisposition to depression is transmitted genetically, that is, heredity is to blame. And then in the central nervous system from time to time failures occur. Actor Ben Stiller once admitted: “I was not a carefree guy. It seems to be called bipolar manic depression. My family’s medical history is rich in such things. “

У reactive there is a reason for depression: divorce, loss of a job, a loved one. Writer, author of the famous Harry Potter books Joanne RowlingAfter parting with her first husband, she fell into such a severe depression that she even thought about suicide. The beautiful actress Catherine Zeta-Jones developed severe depression and manic-depressive psychosis in 2011 after her husband, actor Michael Douglas, was diagnosed with throat cancer. She recalled: “I didn’t just rush down, I carried everyone around me. It’s like a dark cloud. Everyone has arrived, we need to get rid of everyone. “

Recently, depression has both of those reasons. If you live in a state of chronic stress: with a grumpy mother-in-law or an alcoholic husband, work with an evil, rotten boss, then at some point a nonsense reason, such as the flu, is enough to give an impetus to the development of the disease.

By the way, is it a disease? Some people think that depression is just a whim and a weakness of character, they say, you just need to overcome yourself – and your mood will improve. It’s not that simple. With depression in the body, disturbances occur at the biochemical level, primarily in the exchange of serotonin (this is a hormone of pleasure). Therefore, during treatment, drugs are most often prescribed that normalize this exchange.

Singer Nadezhda Kadysheva told the magazine “Antenna” that in their family hereditary depression, her mother and younger sister died because of this disease, when they were not yet 40 years old. Nadezhda said: “Every few years, for several months, anxiety, fear, sadness and apathy for life settled in my soul. It seemed that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “

More likely to get this attack if

• one of the relatives suffers from this disease,
• have chronic somatic diseases,
• if you are a vulnerable and sensitive person,
• if you are lonely.

By the way, according to statistics, people with higher education are more susceptible to depression. The higher a person’s social level, the more likely they are to have depression. The most vulnerable are women. They suffer from depression 2 times more often than men.

Depression can be of varying severity. It all depends on the depth of manifestations and the duration of the disease. The easiest is when a person continues to be socially active and recovers in two weeks. Reactive depression ends when the traumatic situation is cleared up. Lost his job, worried, received medical treatment, found a job, recovered.

But sometimes depression can last for years. Russian singer Natalie admitted that she suffered from severe depression for 20 years.

Depression strikes all vital organs. It can lead to gastritis, inflammation of the duodenum, colitis, stomach ulcers, bronchial asthma, exacerbate existing diseases, accelerate the onset of stroke, heart attack.

And most importantly, depression devastates and plunges into gloomy darkness. Comic actor Jim Carrey said that for many years he felt like his hero of the film “The Mask”: on the set he grimaced and had fun, and at home he died of melancholy and drank antidepressants as guests.

If a bad mood, lethargy, weakness, a state where the usual joys do not bring pleasure, last more than 2 weeks, you should go to the doctor. Feel free to be depressed! You will find yourself in an elite company: suffered from depression Nikolay Gogol, Winston Churchill, Liza Minnelli and even everyone’s favorite princess Diana… If you see that your loved one has fallen into a blues, support him.

In no case do not try to “get better” with the help of alcohol, it will only aggravate your condition.

Don’t be afraid of depression! She heals well.

You need to contact a psychotherapist who has a diploma in higher medical education and works in a special medical institution, or a psychiatrist. And remember: usually it takes a long time to be treated for depression, at least 3 months, and better – six months.

1. If you are in trouble, do not curse fate. Tell yourself: “Everything passes, this will pass too.”

2. Do not blame yourself for the failure, most likely, the circumstances are to blame for it. Tell yourself: “I am smart, talented, lucky, just this time I did not succeed in one thing.”

3. Do not chew your feelings, from this they only intensify.

4. If it seems to you that everything is going badly, remember the happiest moments of your life and think that there will definitely be many more such pleasant events ahead of you.

5. Take out your photo album, select the photos of you smiling happily, and hang them on the wall.

6. Even if you don’t want anything, in no case do not let yourself “lie down”: do not lie on the couch, occupy yourself with something, go for a walk, go to the museum, to the cinema, to the theater, to a concert. Be in public more.

7. Buy a yoga tutorial. Pick a few exercises and do them every day.

8. Finish charging with this “shaking” exercise. Stand up straight. Raise your shoulders up and throw them down sharply.

9. Do what you like: buy the thing you like, even if you go out of the budget, go to the hairdresser, beautician, makeup artist, or just rearrange the furniture in the house.

10. Buy yourself an invigorating shower gel with the scent of orange, grapefruit, lemon and wash with it every morning. Take a bath with aromatic oils: geranium, ylang-ylang, orange. Buy an aroma lamp and breathe in the aromas of the oils for half an hour every day.

У Melanie Si, a former Spice Girls soloist, has her own secret: “There is always a fear that depression may return, but I try to do everything right. I try to get enough sleep because I know that sleep is necessary to function properly and I have to eat and exercise properly. “