Real depression vs feeling crappy...
With the death of the great Robin Williams, a lot of attention has been given to the nature of depression. I feel this is drastically heading in the wrong direction. Yes depression exists, it some cases very seriously. There is a massive difference between someone thinking they are depressed because their spouse left them or they lost their job and true clinical depression.
I feel the need to take the time to distinguish between the two as the topic is hot right now and ignorance on the subject (which is probable) is already growing. I spoke with a girl at Vapor Central on Young St in Toronto and she claimed she had the worst depression of anyone. She said she doesn't always feel like going to work because some days she feels sad... Feeling down is not depression!
There seems to be some prescription friendly Dr's out there telling people they are depressed when they are not. Let's look at two differences:
-A person has a series of life events that make them feel really down. They stay in a down mood because the mourning time of death, divorce/break up, losing a job, or even losing a pet. They feel really down because they haven't had anything really good happen to them lately. This is not depression!!! It is lack of happiness.
-A person living a normal life starts to feel down for no reason, they are a good employee, good wife/husband, good parent, great comedian... etc etc. All of the sudden their life starts making them unhappy for no reason. They start to change their life hoping to change their mood, possibly even eliminating a; relationship, job, or place of living. This spiral effect continues and they only feel worse and worse. In some part worse because they have "ruined" parts of their life they use to love. In another part because their serotonin and dopamine levels have depleted. THIS IS CLINICAL DEPRESSION!!! The real depression.
Awareness is needed on this because some people who are down demand d**gs to make themselves feel better because they claim they have depression. People with true depression rather don't even realize they have it. Not realizing you have real depression is very dangerous! A person with true depression may sink into a pit of such extreme despair that they see suicide as they only way out, they don't know there is a serotonin and dopamine imbalance in their brain.
I have been diagnosed Type 2 Bipolar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_II_disorder ), it took about 3+ years to diagnose me because of the amount of confusion of what real depression is. Ho do you tell the difference between someone who's feelings are hurt and someone who can't figure out why their brain seems to be operating differently?
Trust me, most of the people who say or think they are depressed are actually not. It's time for people to understand the differences.
I feel the need to take the time to distinguish between the two as the topic is hot right now and ignorance on the subject (which is probable) is already growing. I spoke with a girl at Vapor Central on Young St in Toronto and she claimed she had the worst depression of anyone. She said she doesn't always feel like going to work because some days she feels sad... Feeling down is not depression!
There seems to be some prescription friendly Dr's out there telling people they are depressed when they are not. Let's look at two differences:
-A person has a series of life events that make them feel really down. They stay in a down mood because the mourning time of death, divorce/break up, losing a job, or even losing a pet. They feel really down because they haven't had anything really good happen to them lately. This is not depression!!! It is lack of happiness.
-A person living a normal life starts to feel down for no reason, they are a good employee, good wife/husband, good parent, great comedian... etc etc. All of the sudden their life starts making them unhappy for no reason. They start to change their life hoping to change their mood, possibly even eliminating a; relationship, job, or place of living. This spiral effect continues and they only feel worse and worse. In some part worse because they have "ruined" parts of their life they use to love. In another part because their serotonin and dopamine levels have depleted. THIS IS CLINICAL DEPRESSION!!! The real depression.
Awareness is needed on this because some people who are down demand d**gs to make themselves feel better because they claim they have depression. People with true depression rather don't even realize they have it. Not realizing you have real depression is very dangerous! A person with true depression may sink into a pit of such extreme despair that they see suicide as they only way out, they don't know there is a serotonin and dopamine imbalance in their brain.
I have been diagnosed Type 2 Bipolar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_II_disorder ), it took about 3+ years to diagnose me because of the amount of confusion of what real depression is. Ho do you tell the difference between someone who's feelings are hurt and someone who can't figure out why their brain seems to be operating differently?
Trust me, most of the people who say or think they are depressed are actually not. It's time for people to understand the differences.
10 years ago
Most people are ignorant on the differences.