[phyrrus9]

First of all, what is depression?

Depression is simply defined as sadness, emptiness and basically non-existence of happiness in someone's life, that can last from few weeks to few months and in some cases even few years.

From some research, depression affects (or affected) 1 in 10 people worldwide, so it's not rare illness. Today, it mostly affects teens and it's leading cause of suicide among them.

Am i depressed?

I know many people today that are saying they're depressed, even if they aren't. Depression is sadness without almost any feel of happiness for a longer period of time. Being sad for few days doesn't have to mean that you're in depression, but that you are just sad, which is normal. No one is happy everyday.

If you think you're depressed, please answer to all questions i wrote below. If you answer positive to 5 or more, you're most likely depressed.

1. Sleeping problems - hard to fall asleep, nightmares, staying awake for too long at night
2. Feeling like there are no reasons to live - everyday you feel like it's just one more day for you to suffer
3. No interests in things you loved before - your favorite movies/tv shows, games, hobbies or books are not fun anymore
4. Mostly/always tired - always sleepy, just want to be in bed for hours staring at walls/crying
5. No eating - no apetite, you don't eat for one or more days in a row
6. Bad concentration - can't focus on homework or talking with someone
7. Avoiding activities - you don't want to go out, go to school, do sports
8. Hate people around you - just don't want to have any contact with anyone
9. Speaking quietly - speaking heavily, hardly, lazy

Beating depression

I was depressed for 7-8 months and i will try to help you as best as i can from my own experience.

I didn't even knew what is depression nor that i was depressed until i talked with someone about my problems. I decided to talk with my mom about it, because i know she will always support me in anything. I just said everything - how i felt, how my friends acted because of my behavior, that i don't eat properly, sleepy all day etc.

Turns out she was also depressed long time ago. We had long talk and i instantly felt better after that. Psychologists won't help you much if you don't help yourself. Most important thing is talking with someone about it and having that person fully understand and support you. There is always someone you can talk to, even if you can't talk with your family, you can with your teacher, school friends, pedagogue etc. Being quiet about it and hiding your depression from everyone is worst that you can do.

Don't want to talk about it

Depressed people may not want to talk with anyone about their problems with depression because they think they are weak for feeling down, or they are afraid of answers/thoughts they may get (e.g he's so miserable, he just wants attention etc...).

You shouldn't be afraid of talking about it with anyone. Same as you can talk about a fever, you can talk about depression. If they act negatively because of how you feel, they are not your friends nor someone you want in your life.

What triggers depression?

From my case it was loneliness - i just didn't have any good friends i can spend time with so without any social interactions depression was slowly appearing. In some other cases, it can be bad social environment, family fights, poor social skills, different sexual orientation, genetics, loss of loved one and so on...

I think that above reasons are not valid enough to stop you from living life the way you want and enjoy it. You need to step away from negative things, such as bad friends and be in positive environment, e.g your family, close friends etc. You will be happier.

Depressed friend

If you know someone that is depressed, you should talk with that person. Most people are trying to cheer up depressed friend, which may help but only temporarily.

Goal is not trying to make them happy, but making themselves feel happy by their own thoughts. They're sad because of focusing on negative things. You need to help them out by clearing up their thoughts and getting them happy on their own.

Try having a long talk with your depressed friend. Try your best to fully understand and help anyway possible. Let the depressed person think about everything and don't act like you are responsible for his life, because he may feel too weak and ignore you or just feel even worse.

~~~

Below are some links i would like you to read:

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-fami...depression
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond...c-20356007
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/kc/depr...ments-8933

If you have any further questions, please feel free to PM me or reply below, i will be happy to respond you and talk about anything.

Nice post with a lot of surface level information, kudos for citing your sources.

I have a couple points I want to make (from my experiences working in the medical field).
Depression is not like a fever, and there are many different types of depression:
Acute Depression (lasts less than 24 hours, basically you got sad because your paycheck was $0.12 short)
Post-Acute Depression (a lingering symptom of acute depression, example you crashed your car)
Chronic Depression (depression that has no physical root cause and can linger for months, years, or indefinetely. Example cause: isolation, same as you stated)
Manic Depression (also known as Bipolar type 2, you go through cyclic periods of feeling good and feeling bad, almost everybody can be diagnosed with this)
Chronic Manic Depression (also known as bipolar type 1, same as bipolar 2 except the period is <6 months and a predictable trend is present. this is usually rooted in childhood psychological trauma)
Induced Depression (sometimes referred as a symptom of social anxeity, this is the nasty one, it's practically undiagnosable and very difficult to treat).

I do, however agree about psychologists/iatrists. Their job is to find a problem with you, and scientifically if you look for something bad, you will either observe it or create it. My advised course of action is to see your regular doctor about these issues, a doctor that knows you well. I find that psych medications (benzodiazepines, SSRIs and barbituates) tend to work very poorly at treating depression, they only supress the symptoms and cause a myriad of other unwanted symptoms. However, there are other (ADHD, Pain, diet) medications that treat depression very well with very few side effects (aside from addiction). Your regular doctor will know about these and be able to prescribe them if necessary. Don't ever ask for a medication, let the doctor doctor.

But the most important thing to do when you're depressed is to stay active. Find a task to do, the more tedious the better.