Depression: Understanding What It Is and Who It Affects

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What is depression? Who are the groups affected by depression? How do people know when they are having signs, and/or symptoms of depression? Depression has numerous signs and symptoms, which means it comes in different shapes and sizes. No one individual is identical when it comes to feeling depressed. Depression is a mood disorder involving disturbances in emotion (excessive sadness), behavior (loss of interest in one’s usual activities), cognition (thoughts of hopelessness), and body function (fatigue and loss of appetite) (Wade, Tavris 567). Most people don’t even know when depression is happening to them. It usually takes friends, family, or even doctors to notice the symptoms of depression within somebody they know. People that are depressed have the tendency to describe their mood as gloomy, miserable, dreary or uneasy. A lot of victims of depression have additional feelings of worthlessness, doubt, emptiness, pointlessness, unreasonable guilt, boredom, despair, and weakness. A person that is severely depressed can have negative affects on the surrounding people in their life. If a person has knowledge of what type of depression they have, it will help administer their symptoms better and aid the doctors in performing the suitable treatments. Those without the knowledge of depression will sometime confuse it for sadness. Regular sadness is not identical to depression. Sadness is a response to disappointments, setbacks, and struggle that life brings, which is very typical. Unlike depression, sadness changes in an instead if a joyful moment shall appear. The different types of depression have its’ own unique causes, effects, and symptoms. One type of depression is called major depression. Major depression is the incapabi... ... middle of paper ... ... soon be the next largest killer following heart disease by the year 2020 and studies confirm depression is a contributing factor to deadly coronary illness. Depression is one of the most advanced problems and killers of our time. Works Cited Ainsworth, Patricia. Understanding Depression-Understanding Health and Sickness Series. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. Quinn Ph.D., Brain P. The Depression Source Book 2nd Edition. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 2000. Smith M.A., Melindanna, Joanna Saisan MSW and Jeanne Segal Ph.D. 6. June 2011. . Wade, Carole and Carol Tavris. Psychology Tenth Edition. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers, 2011. www.womenshealth.gov/statistics. (n.d). 21 June 2011. .

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