Depression Learning

Clinical Depression

Clinical depression is a mental illness, which negatively impacts upon a person’s life. Clinical depression is a debilitating illness, which affects your emotions, cognitive processes and your physical well being. Clinical depression can only be diagnosed by a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist, and it is not the same as a depression that most of us feel from time to time in our lifetime, which may last for a few hours or a few days. Clinical depression impairs our lives by preventing us from doing the things we were once able to do, or by making us lose interest in the things we enjoy doing. Sufferers of clinical depression do not feel depressed and then all of a sudden feel better, depression becomes a way of life and these individuals suffering from clinical depression must suffer with the depression symptoms for months and sometimes years on end. Depending upon the type of clinical depression a person is suffering from, clinical depression can prevent a person from working or studying, make and keep friendships, enjoying a good family life and more.

Clinical depression is not something that can be wished away, people suffering from clinical depression must seek medical attention. Clinical depression renders people into feeling helpless and hopeless and lacking energy. Clinical depression is a serious illness and sufferers are not lazy using the diagnosis to get out work or activities that they need to be doing in their everyday life. Some symptoms are so severe that clinical depression sufferers attempt and do commit suicide. Because of the depression, severe depression can affect a person’s ability to wish for or go for medical help.

Sufferers of clinical depression will come from all walks of life, all ethnicities, and cultures. Clinical depression affects both men and women. According to the American Psychiatric Association, at least 17 million American have some kind of clinical depression. Unfortunately depression is often left untreated because many sufferers are too mentally depressed to seek treatment.

Three Different kinds of Depression

There are different levels and different kinds of depression. Only health care practitioners such as mental health counselors can diagnose clinical depression. Though concerned individuals can Google the signs and symptoms of depression to see if this illness might be affecting them, they do need to see a psychiatrist, or psychologist etc to be properly diagnosed. With proper depression diagnosis and depression treatment, individuals can begin to feel better in a just a few months.

Major depression is the most severe type of depression and can lead a person to committing suicide. Though most people do not go to that extreme, many sufferers do have suicide thoughts. Major depression usually occurs after an extreme event or crisis such as a death in the family, loss of job etc. An individual can have either a single episode or several reoccurring episodes.

Dysthymia is a moderate depression and is also a chronic depression. Though these depression symptoms are less severe than major depression they continue over time and are triggered by biological components; low levels of serotonin in the brain, and life events and lifestyles

Bipolar disorder formerly known and manic-depressive disorder, is a condition where sufferers will suffer from bouts of depression followed by periods of elation and mania. The sufferers feel out of control because of the yoyo effect of extreme highs and extreme lows.

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