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BY BOB TREANOR
Rappahannock News Contributing Writer
With regard to negative emotional problems that people experience, one of the most common is Depression. All of us have felt “down” at times. We can be sad at the loss of a loved one, a job or even a pet. A person might be upset about illness or loss of abilities.
Children (or adults) often react with sadness to moving to a new home, to failing a test or to being rejected by a friend. These are universal reactions to life’s “hard knocks” and they can be quite disturbing. Although this depression is common, it is Clinical Depression that mental professionals are often called to work on.
Clinical Depression is a term used to describe a particular condition that can have one or more specific symptoms. A sleep disorder (too much/too little) is common, as is an eating disorder (significant weight loss or gain).
A depressed person usually has a decrease in his/her ability to concentrate. He/she tends to be lethargic with low energy. The person might feel worthless or be wracked by excessive, inappropriate guilt. Recurrent thoughts of death are common, at times with suicidal fantasies.
The symptoms tend to hang on for a protracted period of time. As with other “illnesses” one does not have to experience all of the symptoms to have the disorder, and both adults and children can have it.
The causes of Clinical Depression are complex and may not be clear. It often runs in families. Prolonged exposure to stress can bring it on. Chemical dependency to drugs or alcohol can cause it. People who have experienced it in the past have a higher likelihood of having it again.
Depression appears to be a change in body chemistry, and it can be debilitating to some and deadly to others. One thing that is clear is that it is more common than experts had previously supposed.
Identification of Clinical Depression is made more difficult by the fact that victims are often unaware that they have the condition. Others may also fail to notice the problem. Some people have been depressed for so long that it seems like their normal mood. At times, depressed persons and/or their loved ones play an odd mind game when they conclude that the illness is not “that bad yet”. (How bad is that bad?)
With the expansion of research and clinical experience with mental health disorders, the treatment of depression has improved greatly.
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