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This is day 2 of 31 Days of Finding Joy in Depression. If you're just joining me, go back and read the intro post to this series.
Before we can really tackle depression, we have to know what it is.
Depression may be described as feeling sad, blue, unhappy, miserable, or down in the dumps. Most of us feel this way at one time or another for short periods.
Clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for a longer period of time.
(from the U.S. National Library of Medicine)
Depression has many faces including: minor depression, major depression, atypical depression, dysthymia, postpartum depsression, bipolar disorder, and more. Each one is slightly different, varying in severity as well as the optimal methods for treatment.
Symptoms can include:
- Low mood or irritability
- A loss of pleasure in usual activities
- Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much
- Major change in appetite or weight
- No energy
- Feeling worthlessness, self-hate, and guilt
- Trouble concentrating
- Hopeless or helplessness
- Repeated thoughts of death or suicide
If you experience multiple symptoms for a prolonged period of time, you may have some form of depression. Please seek out the advice of your doctor or trusted counselor.
I personally have dysthymia. Over the next few days, I'll tell you more about what dysthymia is and how I discovered that I had it.
Do you suffer from any of these symptoms? Multiple symptoms? Have you been evaluated for depression?
If you deal with depression, please comment and share your journey too. If you're a blogger, you can use the button and code below to share your story and link back on your blog. Feel free to leave links to your posts in the comments area.
I'm linking up with The Nester and others who are writing 31 posts this month on various topics. I'm not a doctor or a counselor and this is not intended to be medical advice. This is simply the story of my experience with depression.
