What is depression?

Most people are familiar with feeling sad and blue for a time. To have a depression is something else and goes beyond that. The difference is that a depression lasts longer and is much more far-reaching than just feeling sad. It will be your entire personality that is affected and you will have a range of symptoms that are present at the same time.

Anyone can be affected by a depression. We are dealing with one of the great and widespread illnesses here. About one in five will get a depression at some point in their life. Fortunately, many only contract the illness a single time, but approximately one in10 of those affected get more than ten depressions in their lifetime. Twice as many women as men are affected.

If you have a depression, you have typically been sad for a long time, and you have no energy or desire to do anything. You may have very low self-esteem. Perhaps you worry a lot or blame yourself for things you have said or done. You may feel tired all the time, find it difficult to concentrate and cannot imagine that you will ever get any better.

Your body and appetite may be affected so that you have a very small appetite and weight loss caused by that. In a particular form of depression, the so-called winter depression, your appetite may on the contrary be increased. If you have a depression, you will typically have problems sleeping at night.

Many people believe that when you have a depression, you will also get a so-called mania. This can best be described as the opposite of a depression. You are typically hyper-active most of the day, and have a hard time relaxing and going to sleep at night. But that is not how it works. If you get both, it is a completely different disease known as a bipolar affective disorder.

As an illness, depression is divided into light, moderate and severe depression depending on how serious it is. In case of a light depression, you will have some of the above symptoms, but they are not typically so bad that you can no longer function on a daily basis. The more serious your depression is, the more difficult your symptoms will be, until your life as a whole and your everyday life possibly grinds almost to a halt.

The disease may in fact be so severe that it results in a psychosis, which is a condition where you have difficulty separating fantasy from reality. A second sign of a severe depression may be thoughts about suicide. It is therefore important that you receive treatment before a depression becomes so serious, that you start thinking about taking your own life.

There can be many explanations why you get a depression. You may have had problems for quite some time in your relationship, at work, or there may have been a death in the family. You may have been fired from your job and hit by unemployment, stress or something else that can trigger a depression. At the same time you can be genetically disposed to get the illness. It means that you have an inherited vulnerability towards getting the illness. This could mean that if you experience something very tough in your life, it may trigger a depression.

Treatment for a depression depends on how serious it is. Treatment can consist of psychotherapy and antidepressant medication, either by itself or a combination of both. In case of a light depression, psychotherapy may be sufficient. But the more serious the depression is, the more the need will increase for a combination of the two types of treatment.

It is also important to learn something about the illness. How you can live with it. How you can prevent that it comes back.

If you receive antidepressant medication, it may take up to 3 to 6 weeks before you notice a difference. And if the drug is not working, you can either increase the dose or try a different drug. In case of a winter depression, medical treatment can be supplemented with light therapy using a lamp that emits light built up like sunlight.

Depression treatment can either be given by your doctor or by a psychiatrist or psychologist with a private practise. You can also be referred to a psychiatric outpatient clinic. With your therapist you must create a plan for the course of your treatment. You can also learn a lot more about your illness from the patient associations. They will also often have a targeted offering for you when you are suffering from a depression, as well as one for your family.

In cases of very severe depression it may be necessary to be admitted to a psychiatric ward, typically because you are no longer able to take care of yourself. Your condition can actually become life-threatening, either because you have not eaten enough for a long time, or also because you have developed severe thoughts about suicide. In that kind of situation you need to be in a place where your condition can be observed, and it can be ensured that you will not take your own life during the period when you are seriously ill.

If the depression is very severe, you may also be offered electric shock therapy, the so-called ECT. It is the quickest and most effective treatment for very severe depression.

Because each time you have had a depression, it is unfortunately the case that the risk increases that you will get another depression. So if you have had 3 or more depressions, it is recommended that you keep in close contact with your doctor or psychiatrist, and possibly get some preventive medicine that you may take for the rest of your life.

You do not develop a severe depression from one day to the other. It is therefore important that you and your family are aware of the early signs of depression. Contact your doctor quickly to get treatment. The faster you get treatment, the greater the chance that the depression will only last for a short while.

If you have an urgent need for help, you can contact a psychiatric first aid centre or a psychiatric emergency unit.