Depression Learning

Depression and Anxiety

Everyone can and do experience anxiety or fear, as well as depression or sadness at some point in their lives. This is a normal aspect of everyone’s life when dealing with life events, such as the loss of a loved one, financial stress, employment loss, and failure. However, in some cases, depression and anxiety can be debilitating, affecting every facet of a person’s life negatively. In this case, the person can have depressive disorder and/or anxiety. If left untreated, these disorders can become so severe that the affected person no longer can effectively function in a daily routine. Something as trivial as getting out of bed, personal hygiene, holding gainful employment, participating in society, and maintaining family and friend relationships can become near impossible.

Depression and anxiety often go hand-in-hand when it comes to mental disorders. It is not out of the ordinary for someone diagnosed with anxiety disorder to be diagnosed with depressive disorder. In fact, nearly half of those diagnosed with depression are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder as well. The good news is that both are treatable in conjunction or separately.

Anxiety disorder diagnosis focuses on the person’s constant, unreasonable, and irrepressible fear or apprehension. Anxiety disorder diagnosis includes generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder (social phobia), and specific phobias. We all may have perfectly reasonable fears, such as fear of heights or fear of snakes, which in many cases are based on life experiences and/or anthropological or cultural factors (fears that have helped humanity survive in the most hostile of environments). However, anxiety disorder takes these fears and magnifies them to the point of dysfunction. Fear of something specific is known as a phobia.

Depression is a mental disorder marked by sadness, hopelessness, discouragement, and disinterest, among other things. Normally, people may experience these symptoms briefly, in which case the symptoms are often categorized as the “the blues” or “down in the dumps” or whatever colloquialism is appropriate for temporary sadness. Yet, when these symptoms last for extended periods of time, recurring without cause, and affecting the person’s life to the extent of debilitation, the person may be experiencing a major depressive episode. These symptoms interfere with daily activities such as work, school, family care, and personal relationships (such as marriage and friendships). The three main types of depression disorders are major depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder.

Depression and anxiety can be caused by a number of factors and is usually dependent on the particular situation and/or life and medical history of the person in question. Some consider mental disorder treatment more of an art than a science because each person has different genetics, brain chemistry, personality and life events; but the diagnosis and symptoms are firmly rooted in scientific criteria. Depression and anxiety can have physical symptom manifestations as well.

Depression and anxiety are often coupled together since those affected are often diagnosed with both; also, both can be causative to the other. Both are treatable; yet, if left untreated, they can lead to dysfunction in the affected person’s daily life. If you are experiencing any of the symptoms for a prolonged period of time or find yourself experiencing them in sporadic episodes over a long period of time, it is imperative to seek professional help.

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