How do you recognize depression or depressive disorder in yourself or another person and what are the causes?
Depression is one of the most common mood disorders. More than 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression or depressive disorder. But how do you recognize depression and what are its causes?
Am I depressed?
Everyone has a period when you are not feeling well. A few days of depressed mood or negative thought patterns does not necessarily mean that you have depression. Usually these depressive feelings go away by themselves. Do you suffer from mood symptoms for more than two weeks? Then you may have a depressive disorder.
What are the symptoms of depression?
Depression can sometimes be difficult to recognize because depressive symptoms can manifest differently in everyone. Nevertheless, there are some characteristics by which you can recognize depression. In particular, according to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), depression can be recognized by a depressed mood and loss of interest in almost all activities. In addition to these characteristics, the symptoms listed below are the most common complaints in people with depression.
- Gloomy mood
- Loss of interest
- Sleep problems
- Restless or sluggish
- Fatigued, loss of energy
- Feeling worthless and guilty
- Concentration and memory problems
- Thoughts of death
- Weight loss or gain
- Indecision
- Loneliness
Different types of depression
Depression can take many different forms. For example, we distinguish between mild, moderate and severe depression. In addition, there are also different types of depression.
Recurrent depression
If the depressive symptoms keep recurring we speak of recurrent depression.
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness. The disorder is recognized by the alternation of extremely gloomy or just manic episodes. Bipolar disorder is also called manic-depressive disorder.
Chronically depressed
Chronic depression is also called dysthymia or dysthymic disorder. When you suffer from dysthymic depression, you have been chronically depressed for at least two years. The characteristics of dysthymia are often less noticeable than "normal" depression, and depressive symptoms can sometimes subside for a short period of time.
Seasonal depression
When a person suffers from depressive symptoms every year in the same season it is called seasonal depression. For most people, this manifests as winter depression, but fall depression, summer depression or spring depression are also possible.
Postpartum depression
Some women suffer from a gloomy mood for months after giving birth. If the mood symptoms persist we speak of postpartum depression or postpartum depression.
Causes of depression
The causes or triggers of depression cannot always be clearly identified. However, there are certain factors that can play a role in the development of depressive symptoms.
During treatment at U-center, therefore, we always look at the whole picture. Using the bio-psycho-social model, we take into account all the factors that can influence the depression. These factors are often a combination of biological or medical, psychological and social factors. Here you can think for example of genetic vulnerability, constitution, diseases, medication, substance use. Psychological factors include personality, coping style and trauma. Social factors include relationships, family, work, hobbies, daily activities, finances and housing.