Being Depressed And Having Depression

Can Depression Be A Symptom Of Other Mental Health Problems

Depression can be a part of several mental health problems, such as:

If feelings of low mood or suicidal thoughts are the reason you first speak to your doctor about your mental health, your GP might offer you treatment for depression without realising that you are also experiencing other symptoms.

If you think you’re experiencing other symptoms, you can talk to your doctor about this to make sure you’re getting the right treatment to help you. See our pages on for information on how to make sure your voice is heard, and what you can do if you’re not happy with your doctor.

Which Types Of Talk Therapy Work Best For Depression

• Behavioral activation therapy The aim of this type of therapy is to reverse the downward spiral of depression by encouraging you to seek out experiences and activities that give you joy.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy CBT focuses on changing specific negative thought patterns so that you are able to better respond to challenging and stressful situations.
• Interpersonal therapy This very structured, time-limited form of therapy focuses on identifying and improving problematic personal relationships and circumstances directly related to your current depressive mood.
• Problem-solving therapy This therapy is a form of CBT that teaches take-charge skills that help you solve real-life problems and stressors, big and small, that contribute to depression.
• Self-management/self-control therapy This type of behavioral therapy trains you to lessen your negative reactions to events and reduce your self-punishing behaviors and thoughts.

Most People With Depression Need Treatment To Feel Better

If you think you may have depression, start by making an appointment to see your health care provider. This could be your primary doctor or a health provider who specializes in diagnosing and treating mental health conditions . Certain medications, and some medical conditions, such as viruses or a thyroid disorder, can cause the same symptoms as depression. A health care provider can rule out these possibilities by doing a physical exam, interview, and lab tests. Your health care provider will examine you and talk to you about treatment options and next steps.

Talking to Your Health Care Provider About Your Mental Health

Communicating well with your health care provider can improve your care and help you both make good choices about your health. Read about tips to help prepare and get the most out of your visit. For additional resources, including questions to ask your health care provider, visit the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Also Check: What Can You Do For Severe Depression

How Is Depression Syndrome Treated

Depression can be serious, but its also treatable. Treatment for depression includes:

• Self-help: Regular exercise, getting enough sleep, and spending time with people you care about can improve depression symptoms.
• Counseling: Counseling or psychotherapy is talking with a mental health professional. Your counselor helps you address your problems and develop coping skills. Sometimes brief therapy is all you need. Other people continue therapy longer.
• Alternative medicine: People with mild depression or ongoing symptoms can improve their well-being with complementary therapy. Therapy may include massage, acupuncture, hypnosis and biofeedback.
• Medication: Prescription medicine called antidepressants can help change brain chemistry that causes depression. Antidepressants can take a few weeks to have an effect. Some antidepressants have side effects, which often improve with time. If they dont, talk to your provider. A different medications may work better for you.
• Brain stimulation therapy: Brain stimulation therapy can help people who have severe depression or depression with psychosis. Types of brain stimulation therapy include electroconvulsive therapy , transcranial magnetic stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation .

General Signs And Symptoms

Not everyone with depression will experience the same symptoms. Symptoms can vary in severity, how often they happen, and how long they last.

If you experience some of the following signs and of depression nearly every day for at least 2 weeks, you may be living with depression:

• feeling sad, anxious, or empty
• feeling hopeless, worthless, and pessimistic

The symptoms of depression can be experienced differently among males, females, teens, and children.

Males may experience symptoms related to their:

• mood, such as anger, aggressiveness, irritability, anxiousness, or restlessness
• emotional well-being, such as feeling empty, sad, or hopeless
• behavior, such as loss of interest, no longer finding pleasure in favorite activities, feeling tired easily, thoughts of suicide, drinking excessively, using drugs, or engaging in high-risk activities
• sexual interest, such as reduced sexual desire or lack of sexual performance
• cognitive abilities, such as inability to concentrate, difficulty completing tasks, or delayed responses during conversations
• sleep patterns, such as insomnia, restless sleep, excessive sleepiness, or not sleeping through the night
• physical well-being, such as fatigue, pains, headache, or digestive problems

Females may experience symptoms related to their:

Children may experience

Common causes include:

You may successfully manage symptoms with one form of treatment, or you may find that a combination of treatments works best.

Recommended Reading: How To Tell If My Cat Is Sick Or Depressed

Know The Warning Signs Of Suicide

The risk of suicide is always elevated during major depressive disorder. Its important to know the and get immediate medical assistance:

• Talking about suicide

• Getting affairs in order

• Developing personality changes

Caring for a partner with depression is emotionally taxing for the caregiver. Its important to practice self-care and increase your own support network during this time.

Create A Supportive Home Environment

Its important to remember that your partners depression isnt anyones fault. While you cant fix it, your support will help your partner work through this difficult time.

Changes in lifestyle can make a big difference during the treatment process. Because depression can zap a persons energy and affect both and appetite, it can be difficult for depressed people to make healthy choices. You can help:

Don’t Miss: Stellate Ganglion Block For Depression

When Should You Get Help

On the other side of the spectrum, there are people that I know that are extremely depressed but refuse to get help. If you have depression, your life is completely turned upside down for absolutely no reason you could be at a point where things are perfect from the outside, but it feels like youre walking around with a cloud over your head. Every day you keep thinking to your self, Why am I sad?, Why do I feel like I could break down and cry at any point?, Is this normal?, or Is something wrong with me?If your sadness is getting to the point that it’s affecting your work, relationships, sleep, or you feel suicidal, you need to get help–try not to self-diagnose.

Diagnosis Of Severe Depression

Guidelines such as those found in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” and the International Classification of Diseases help doctors and mental health professionals systematically assess a person’s symptoms. These criteria can be changed and are periodically updated when new research findings become available.

You May Like: Community Resources For Postpartum Depression

A History Of Trauma Neglect Or Abuse

Abuse, neglect, or rejection in childhood can increase your chances of developing depression and contribute to feelings of unresolved anger.

If you couldnt react or express anger in childhood, you might continue to suppress it later in life, even when it happens as a natural response to humiliation or unjust circumstances. Suppressed anger, again, tends to leak out usually as persistent irritability or verbal and physical outbursts.

Plus, internalized feelings of helplessness and worthlessness, which can stem from childhood abuse or any traumatic experience, can lead you to redirect anger toward yourself. These feelings can fuel shame, harsh self-criticism, and self-punishment all of which often happen with depression.

What Illnesses Happen With Depression

Itâs common for people to have other medical or mental health problems along with depression, such as anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, phobias, substance use disorders, and eating disorders. If you or a loved one has symptoms of depression or another mental illness, talk to your doctor. Treatments can help.

Don’t Miss: High Functioning Autism And Depression Treatment

Causes And Risk Factors

Depression is not a mood you can just get over. It is a disease in which the brain ceases to register pleasurable activities, says Angelino. Indeed, MRI studies with depressed people have found changes in the parts of the brain that play a significant role in depression.

Women are about twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression. Youre also more likely to develop depression if you are between ages 45 and 64, nonwhite, or divorced, and if you never graduated high school, cant work or are unemployed, and dont have health insurance. Other risks for depression include factors such as these:

• Experiencing stressful events in your life, such as losing your job, having problems in your marriage, major health problems, and/or financial challenges.
• Having a bad childhood, such as one involving abuse, poor relationships with your parents, and/or your parents own marital problems.
• Certain personality traits, such as getting extremely upset when youre stressed.
• A family history of depression, which can increase your own risk three or four times.

Depression is far more common than you might think, with nearly one out of 10 adults depressed at any time, about half of them severely.

Types Of Diagnostic Tools

Researchers have been using such scales since the 1960s. One of the first, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, is still sometimes used today. However, there are many more scales available that are better suited for doctors to use with patients. There are even scales patients can use on their own to track or self-report depression symptoms.

While scales can offer key insights, they tend to be quite different from one another. The way they are administered, the questions they ask, and the way the answers are interpreted may not be the same from one scale to the next.

The inconsistencies of the tools, their use, and interpretation can make it challenging to determine the severity of someones depression, as different scales may provide different results. That said, when used along with other diagnostic measures and the judgment of an experienced clinician, the scales can be useful tools.

Also Check: How Do You Get Rid Of Depression And Anxiety

How Depression Affects Relationships

Depression can negatively affect relationships because it can result in conflict, disconnect, and poor communication. One partner might feel isolated and alone. If the depressed partner is experiencing a low mood, the other partner might feel worried and anxious about their overall wellbeing. Depression also affects everything from work, to socializing, to sexual desire, so the ripples of depression within relationships reach beyond low mood. Depression can affect financial stability and employment.

Given the complex nature of depression and the many ways it affects both partners, its important to identify communities of support to help both partners work through it together.

More on this topic

What Treatment Should I Be Offered

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence writes guidance on what treatment doctors should offer you. But your doctor does not have to give you these treatments. And the treatments may not be available in your area.

Different treatments may be available in your area. Your doctor might think these suit your symptoms more than the recommended treatments.

NICE recommend that depression is treated in different steps depending on how severe the condition is for you. The steps are as follows.

Step 1: Everyone who may have depression

Your doctor should offer you:

• an assessment of your symptoms,
• support, such as regular appointments in person or by telephone,
• information on how to deal with your symptoms,
• monitoring of your symptoms and follow-up, and
• referral for further assessment and treatment if needed.

Step 2: Mild to moderate depression

Your doctor may offer you:

• low-intensity interventions, such as self-help guided by the doctor or computerised cognitive behavioural therapy ,
• physical activity programmes,
• group cognitive behavioural therapy ,
• medication if you have a history of moderate or severe depression, or you have had symptoms for a long time, and
• referral for further assessment and treatment if needed.

Step 3: Moderate to severe depression, or mild to moderate depression when other treatments havent worked

Your doctor may suggest:

Step 4: Severe and complex depression or if your life is at risk Your doctor may suggest:

Recommended Reading: How To Approach Someone With Depression

Depression As A Diagnosis

It is clinically accurate to say that depression is a complex mental health disorder that affects all areas of an individuals life. Symptoms can range in severity, but typically for those that struggle with diagnosed depression, symptoms significantly impair an individuals ability to function normally in their daily life.

There are several signs and symptoms that may lead an individual to believe that they can accurately self-diagnose depression. If you or your loved one have displayed any of these symptoms daily in the last two weeks, consider seeking an evaluation from a mental health professional. Signs and symptoms can include:

• Persistent sad or anxious mood
• Feelings of hopelessness
• Feelings of guilt or worthlessness
• Feeling restless
• Issues with concentration, memory, or decision-making
• Changes in sleep or appetite
• Loss of interest in seemingly pleasurable activities
• Self-destructive behavior

There are several different types of depression. When people refer to general depression, they are likely referring to major depressive disorder . The other most common form of depression is called persistent depressive disorder , which typically involves more mild symptoms of depression, although the symptoms last much longer.

Other types of depression include:

How To Approach Your Partner About Help

First, prioritize your self-care. Its exceptionally difficult to help someone else when you are running on empty.

Second, focus on helping, not fixing. Try the following:

• Educate yourself. Books, articles, and your own therapy can all be useful tools as you learn to navigate your supportive role.

• Ask your partner how you can best support them. What do they need to feel supported?

• Offer to seek therapy together to work through this difficult time.

• Reinforce that you are a team and you will support your partner through this.

• Reach out to close friends and family for additional support.

Read Also: Can Too Much Antidepressant Cause Depression

Getting Out Of A Funk: How To Help Yourself Through Depression

Everyone has off days where they feel tired, irritable, and sad. Its normal to feel sadness as a response to challenging life events, loss, or changes, but sometimes these feelings can stick around for a while if left unaddressed and make it difficult for you to get through each day.

Heres how you can tell when youre in a funk or maybe even experiencing a mild depression as well as what you can do to help yourself feel better.

What Other Illnesses Happen With Depression

Itâs common for people to have other medical or mental health problems along with depression, such as anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, phobias, substance use disorders, and eating disorders. If you have symptoms of depression or another mental illness, talk to your doctor. Treatments can help.

Also Check: I Just Want To Be Loved Depression

When To See A Doctor

Those experiencing symptoms of depression should seek assistance from a healthcare provider. Depression can worsen without treatment and affect a persons quality of life.

A doctor or mental health professional will discuss treatment options to help the person manage their depression and carry on with their daily life.

In severe cases, depression can lead to thoughts of suicide or physically harming oneself.

Any suicidal thoughts or statements about not wanting to live should be taken seriously. In times of crisis, a person should seek help from a hospital emergency department.

Help is also available 24/7 from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or 1-800-273-TALK , or by visiting the Lifelines website.

It is possible to treat depression. Treatments for depression include antidepressants and psychotherapy, of which there are many different types.

However, different people may respond better to different treatment methods. As such, people may wish to speak with a doctor about trying different methods until they find the one most suitable for them.

It may be helpful to remember that many treatments may take some time to reach their full effects, so people may not experience results immediately.

Someone on the road to recovery after receiving a proper diagnosis may find it helps to speak out to loved ones and make healthy changes to their diet and lifestyle.

Learn more

How Can Physical Activity Help

Many people with chronic pain avoid exercise. But you can get out of shape and have more risk of injury and more pain. Talk with your doctor to design an exercise plan that’s safe and effective for you.

Trips to the gym also help ease depression by releasing the same kind of brain chemicals that antidepressant medications are thought to affect.

Don’t Miss: Do I Go To A Doctor For Depression

You Can Play A Role In Research By Joining A Clinical Trial

Clinical trials are research studies that look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat diseases and conditions. The goal of clinical trials is to determine if a new test or treatment works and is safe. Although individuals may benefit from being part of a clinical trial, participants should be aware that the primary purpose of a clinical trial is to gain new scientific knowledge so that others may be better helped in the future.

In addition to volunteer research opportunities for the patient groups listed above, research opportunities for healthy volunteers are also available. Healthy volunteers play a critical role in our studies.

For more information about clinical research and how to find clinical trials being conducted around the country, visit NIMH’s clinical trials webpage.