Depression is a medical condition. Depression includes a number of stages. It begins with mild depression, moves to bi-polar disorders or manic depressive disorder in the middle, and carries on to the top rung of major medical depression. Medical depression is a disease. It’s a mental illness but still a disease like cancer or diabetes. It strikes a critical organ, the brain. You aren’t somehow less just because you have depression. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy. It’s a disease that needs attention.
In the beginning, medical depression is invisible. Everyone becomes a little sad and depressed once in a while. Things go wrong in our lives that leave us down and out and in the dumps. That’s not medical depression. Depression is not a situation where you are depressed temporarily. Depression sticks with you for a long time. Medical depression is a long lasting sadness or negative feelings that interfere with living. If your mood changes with the wind and you can be up one minute and down the next than you are certainly showing signs of depression. Bad eating and inability to sleep are also signals.
There are complex reasons for medical depression. A variety of possibilities and causes have to be examined. Stress is certainly one of the major causes of depression. We experience stress each day. Relationships bring stress. Stress comes from balancing the books. The stress of raising children in today’s society can bring on depression. Emotional suffering can bring on depression from stress. Chemical, environmental and even genetic issues further complicate the situation.
There are many treatments for medical depression. Over 17 million Americans each and every year are affected in some way by this disease. The problem is that only a third will ever seek medical assistance. Without diagnosis there can’t be a cure. Talk therapy as well as medications and natural herbs can treat it. Support groups where people can talk about the problem with other sufferers are also there to help. It’s not wise to go it alone when dealing with medical depression. It won’t just disappear. If you or anyone you love is showing signs of battling medical depression seek medical help immediately.