How do you know whether you're suffering from Depression?

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Sigmar: How do you know whether or not you're suffering from Depression? What are the sypmtons/criteria?

Umm, you feel depressed, duh [img]tongue.gif[/img] Or you mean how do they define when you're clinically depressed? When you're depressed more often than not and have no positive thoughts?

Don't worry, it happens to all of us - in fact I think there are far fewer people who are rarely depressed than there are people who are often depressed.

edit: whoah, I never thought I had depression, but reading Aelia's second post, I have a scary number of those symptoms sometimes. But I tend to be like depressed for 2 days then fine for a day or two. Nah, I still don't think I have a major problem though.

[ 02-10-2005, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Vaskez]

I added an edit to my earlier post, but also:

I think that depression is more common among young people. Older people are more used to themselves, have more realistic expectations and are more used to the trials and tribulations of life. My dad said he used to get depressed around my age, but never does any more.

[pritchke]

Originally posted by Sigmar: I was talking about Clinical Depression, and what was the difference beteen being depressed and clinically depressed, and what are the symptons. Thanks for all your feedback thus far guys.

]The symptoms could be the same for both. Plain Depression is mental, affected and caused by outside forces like your boss is a dick, your girl friend dumped you. While most people get over this type of stuff some do not and it can start becoming clinically depressed. Usually some advice from Dr. Phil can get people on track, or they can take medication for a little while until they start to realize it is just there mind.

Clinical is almost all physical, the chemicals in your brain are in an imbalanced state. Nothing at all could have occurred to make you feel like crap. Say when something like a girlfriend dumping you occurs, you feel sad and you do have chemical changes occur but eventually they will reset and go back to normal once you stop feeling sorry for yourself. With clinical the chemicals in your brain just are not going to balance themselves, possibly ever without the proper medications and no amount of advice from Dr. Phil will ever help. You are just stuck that way. The symptoms for clinical can vary from extreme (voices in your head, someone controlling you) to just normal depression feelings (sadness for no reason for long periods, normal depression there could be sadness for a long period but there is a hard reason that caused it), but unlike normal depression they will never go away without help. That's the best I can do to describe the difference.

[ 02-10-2005, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[pritchke]

Originally posted by Vaskez: I added an edit to my earlier post, but also: I think that depression is more common among young people. Older people are more used to themselves, have more realistic expectations and are more used to the trials and tribulations of life. My dad said he used to get depressed around my age, but never does any more.

You bet!! Teens especially and pregnant women,
there bodies are undergoing lots of changes both phisical and chemical, plus day to day lives. To some extent all teens and pregnant women are insane but they normally grow out of it when they become adults, and a little while after giving birth. If not there is a bigger problem to be addressed.

[ 02-10-2005, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Gangrell]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: Having a trained professional who can help you develop coping strategies, as well as provide unconditional support and empathy cannot be anything other than beneficial.

Aelia, from your recent posts, you're saying that only doctors can make certain of this and will undoubtably help others. But just because people have a doctorate or degree in medicine does not make them a guaranteed help. Case and point, me.

About a month and a half ago, I went to see my psychiatrist to start taking medication, so she offered a particular one to me. Tegritol I believe it's spelt, is a very dangerous medication. She went into the explanation of it, sugar coated it, and said, "A bad reaction to it is a rash anywhere on your body, if that happens, stop taking it." Sounds reasonable right? Nope.

Tegritol is a medication to fight depression, that's true, but it's also dangerous as hell to be messing with. You get a rash on one place on your body, your palms, that's because it has an allergic reaction to your blood. If you abruptly stop taking it, it will kill you and it has proved more often than not to be fatal. It doesn't matter if you've spent one year or twenty in your field of expertise, that doesn't always make that person right by any means.

[Blind_Prophet]

Well For about a whole year after I moved I went to school talked to noone didn't do anything my grades went to hell I came home went to sleep right after school then laid around till it was time to go to sleep and then got up and did that every day. Never left my house to go anywhere but to school. If that helps at all

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Vaskez: edit: whoah, I never thought I had depression, but reading Aelia's second post, I have a scary number of those symptoms sometimes. But I tend to be like depressed for 2 days then fine for a day or two. Nah, I still don't think I have a major problem though.

Huh. See how cool self-diagnosis can be .

While of course I understood that there is a lack of understanding about what psychologists do and whether they are worthwhile and so on, which leads to negativity and mistrust about the profession, it is always disappointing to see it so starkly. Most psychologists are well-trained and use scientifically-supported methods and assessments. Some psychologists are crap and people have bad experiences, but there are crap people in every profession. If we decided not to use services because there are some incompetents practicing, then all service industries would be up the creek. It's funny that you hear about doctors misdiagnosing or treating people wrongly often - and yet the same mistrust and decision to not use their services doesn't follow.

There is also confusion in the general public about the difference between psychologists and counsellors and therapists. Most people think they are interchangeable - but that couldn't be more wrong. For example, in Australia, psychologists need a postgraduate degree which included over a thousand hours of clinical practice, or equivalent field experience under supervision. Counsellors need no training or expertise whatsoever - you could leave high school and hang up your counsellor shingle. There is also no recourse for incompetent or dangerous practice for counsellors, whereas psychologists must be accountable to a judicial board and can lose their registration for poor or negligent practice.

Re. clinical vs 'normal' depression. Really, it is a matter of degree, duration, level of functional disturbance, and appropriateness. For example, you could not diagnose someone with depression who is exhibiting all the symptoms of major depression if they have recently had a bereavement and have been depressed for two months. Clinical depression has a chronic duration, impacts significantly on functionality, and is relatively inappropriate for the person's situation. Chemical imbalances are very vogue - but the truth is that we don't really know whether the imbalance is the cause of the symptoms, or comes about because of the symptoms. Sometimes clinical depression does have a trigger, like a bereavement. Sometimes it doesn't. The fact is that anti-depressants work - so they must be having some effect with chemicals and receptors in the brain, so something is going on there. But it is also a fact that talking therapy works. The most effective therapy is a combination of both, especially for severely depressed people who need the anti-depressants to actually have the motivation to actually get up and go to therapy. Talking therapy is also the best means for long-term recovery. Recurrent episodes are common in depression, and anti-depressants are in no way a cure. If you treat depression with medication and then go off it, there is every chance the person will have another episode somewhere down the track and have to use medication again. It only works when you're on it. Talking therapy however, teaches coping skills and strategies that allow a person to prevent recurrent episodes, or deal with them themselves if they arise. It is generally accepted and scientifically supported that depression is caused/afffected by/exacerbated by maladaptive thinking patterns - reacting to situations in ways that encourage feelings of worthlessness or failure. Therapy that targets those thinking patterns and challenges and modifies then so they are helpful and realistic rather than destructive, are effective because then situations that occur later that could potentially trigger another depressive episode are dealt with more adaptively.

By the way, I love Dr. Phil. I think he's super. However, he knows as I do, that the sound byte therapy he gives on his show is just that - sound bytes with little substance. You will notice that with people he can see are actually seriously in trouble have a lot of follow-up and therapy with him or people he has recommended in their town or whatever.

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Gangrell: quote: Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: Having a trained professional who can help you develop coping strategies, as well as provide unconditional support and empathy cannot be anything other than beneficial.

Aelia, from your recent posts, you're saying that only doctors can make certain of this and will undoubtably help others. But just because people have a doctorate or degree in medicine does not make them a guaranteed help. Case and point, me.

About a month and a half ago, I went to see my psychiatrist to start taking medication, so she offered a particular one to me. Tegritol I believe it's spelt, is a very dangerous medication. She went into the explanation of it, sugar coated it, and said, "A bad reaction to it is a rash anywhere on your body, if that happens, stop taking it." Sounds reasonable right? Nope.

Tegritol is a medication to fight depression, that's true, but it's also dangerous as hell to be messing with. You get a rash on one place on your body, your palms, that's because it has an allergic reaction to your blood. If you abruptly stop taking it, it will kill you and it has proved more often than not to be fatal. It doesn't matter if you've spent one year or twenty in your field of expertise, that doesn't always make that person right by any means. [/QUOTE]Absolutely true. However, people who have degrees and doctorates weren't just handed them. I would say it was fairly logical that someone who has been trained by experienced professionals and had experience themselves would be in a better position to perform their job than someone with no training or experience whatsoever. Being informed as a patient is critically important. Obviously you were able to make an informed decision about whether to take the medication, and I would agree that your psychiatrist should have been more frank with you about the drug - it seems to me that she was pretty negligent in how she explained the side-effects. But people in this thread are essentially warning people off professionals, especially psychologists, because of a few bad experiences, and as I commented in my last post, they wouldn't do this with other professions. This is my industry - I know there are bad clinicians out there. But that doesn't make a layman any better at practicing psychology than a psychologist.

By the way, that wouldn't have happened with a psychologist. They can't prescribe medication. And no one ever got a rash from CBT

[Spelca]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: It is important that such feelings cannot be attributed to medical problems that you may not have any idea you have. This is one reason that professional advice should be sought.

I agree. Certain diseases can trigger depression, so it's important that those are ruled out (for example diabetes). Because of that you should see a doctor. Also, depression isn't always just about psychological stuff, there can also be an imbalance in the body. That's why the medicine does help (though I agree that it doesn't in some cases).

I do agree with some people, though, that not all doctors are good. So, Sigmar, ask around who's good and who's recommended. Or go to one and see if you like them. If you don't, go to a different one. And don't let yourself be convinced to take medicine straight away. Have them explain the medicine to you. When I was depressed, the doctor actually drew pictures for me, and it took him quite a while to convince me. (I have a bit of a phobia of medicine, though. [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) Anyway, the medicine can feel horrible at first, but it did feel better for me after a while. I could think more when I got really depressed. I didn't think in loops anymore. But I guess that's different from person to person. I know some people can't stand the medicine and it doesn't help them at all, while it really helps others. [img]smile.gif[/img]

There are also things that you can yourself do. Talk to your family/ friends/ priest/ councellor in school about the problems, eat more healthy, exercise, don't drink, etc. But I don't know how badly you're depressed, so that might not help at all.

[Gangrell]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: By the way, that wouldn't have happened with a psychologist. They can't prescribe medication.

I know that, that's the job of a psychiatrist, I had a thread dedicated to discussing it remember?

I'm not saying that someone off the street could practice psychology any better than a trained psychologist, what I'm saying is because you have a degree in your hand doesn't necessarily mean you know what to do afterwards. As stated above, my psychiatrist lacks the sense to give me the full detail on a lethal drug, yet she went through twelve years of training. People should wield the obviousness not to give that type of medicine that can kill you, and try backing the argument by saying, "Well, even Tylenol can kill someone" (I'm aware it can but it didn't start out killing people).

As for not criticizing other professions (I believe I read that right), everyone has had some bad experience outside people in the medical field but I say what I do because I've never had good experiences with doctors. I know there are good ones out there, just haven't met them.

[ 02-10-2005, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: Gangrell ]