Everyone experiences variations in moods. Many people at some point in life feel disappointment, grief that accompanies the loss of a loved one, or just the simple blues. Severe or prolonged depression that interferes with one’s ability to function, feel pleasure or maintain interest is not a mere case of the blues. It is an illness. Depression is defined as an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts and that affects the way a person eats, sleeps, feels about himself or herself, and thinks about life in general (MedicineNet, 2012). In today’s society we can see this illness grow mainly on teenagers, causing a rapid growth of suicide rates. There are various symptoms which occur that can help identify the illness which cause severe or even deadly effects on a person’s life. Many people believe depression is caused due to an imbalance in certain chemicals in your brain, but the exact cause is unknown. Anyone can develop depression, starting even by a simple stressing event. Some of the factors that can lead to depression involve the abuse of drugs and alcohol, sleeping problems, and events such as the death of loved one, divorce, or being jobless (Breger, 2012).
The symptoms for depression can vary from person to person but it all revolves around feeling “empty”. Depression could be described as a feeling of self worthlessness, unhappiness and in severe cases, feelings of suicide. Most depressed people have the tendency to over sleep but still have loss of energy. Also, they have less or no interest or pleasure in activities done before like reading, playing a sport or even watching T.V. (Breger, 2012). Depression can not only appear as sadness but also anger. In extreme cases of depression, there are psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations (Breger, 2012). People are miserable when depressed and if not treated it can lead to suicide.
Thanks to technology and medical advances it has become rather “easy” to treat depression. In