Some facts and figures on depression

Depression as a disease presents various symptoms ranging from emotional to physical, which to be considered as such, characteristic of a clinical depression must be present for a period equal to or greater than two weeks.

Depression is characterized most of the time by a diminished mood, the person loses interest in the activities he or she used to like to do, to the point of feeling overwhelmed by routine matters such as bathing or getting dressed. The following is a list of the most common symptoms that may indicate depression:

Emotional and psychological symptoms.

▶️ Depressed mood: most of the time, every day, for a period equal to or greater than two weeks. Seriousness, disgust, annoyance, irritability, harshness, dryness.
▶️ Insomnia: the patient is slow to fall asleep or wakes up in the early morning, usually restless. He/she wakes up feeling tired and lacking strength.
▶️ Marked loss of interest: inability to seek out and/or enjoy activities that were previously pleasurable. Indifference, apathy, disaffection, unconcern, neglect.
▶️ Lack of vitality: increased fatigability, weakness, feebleness, faintness, faintness, decay, discouragement, discouragement, inactivity; feeling of loss of muscle strength, tiredness, exhaustion.
▶️ Feelings of inferiority: loss of self-confidence, appreciable decrease in self-esteem, self-contempt, detachment.
▶️ Feelings of guilt: disproportionate self-reproach, self-censorship, disapproval.
▶️ Decreased ability to concentrate: inability to think clearly, indecision, hesitations, self-absorption. Lack of concentration.

Physiological symptoms:

▶️ Dry mouth, constricted throat.
▶️ Altered appetite, diarrhea or constipation.
▶️ Choking sensation, yawning in a row, chest tightness, dizziness. The body is run through with strange chills.
▶️ Multiple somatic complaints: present in more than 70% of depressives. The most common are: tachycardia, feeling of suffocation, gastritis, headache, muscle aches, chronic diarrhea.

Other symptoms

▶️ There is a progressive intolerance to social activities and resentful isolation can be important; he is bothered by conversation, music and even children's laughter. Everything begins to be boring and burdensome, things in life are questioned with "why?" and nothing seems to make sense.
▶️Commonly the day begins with a feeling of anguish, the heart beats wildly as if one has a great fright; the body is run through with strange chills. The task of living seems gigantic.
▶️ Intense uneasiness about falling asleep and abandoning grief. Awakenings in the early morning.
▶️ Feeling of feeling guilty for all the evils of this world. Thoughts of suicide.

Typically, when someone is depressed, they feel tearful, tired, unmotivated. His attitude towards the future tends to be negative. They may think about death and suicide, make plans to commit suicide and carry them out. They also feel aches and pains, insomnia, diarrhea, dizziness, nausea.

The nature of depression can make the simplest tasks, such as calling the doctor or a friend, seem enormous.

Something very common in a depressed person is the presence of the so-called cognitive triad, composed of negative thinking about three aspects: oneself, the world and the future. You see yourself as worthless, you see the world as dark and horrible and the future as hopeless.

But while sadness is useful, depression is not. William Styron gives us an eloquent description of "the many manifestations of prostration", among which are "self-hatred", "lack of self-esteem", "sickly gloom" that is accompanied by "gloomy constriction, a sense of awe and alienation and, above all, overwhelming anxiety". We can also list the intellectual after-effects that accompany this state: "confusion, inability to concentrate and loss of memory" and, on a more intense level, the mind is "chaotically distorted" and "mental processes are swept away by a toxic and abject tide that prevents any possible satisfactory response to the world in which one lives". In addition, this state also has its physical correlates: insomnia, apathy, "a feeling of dullness, nervousness and, more specifically, a strange fragility" that are accompanied by "a disturbing uneasiness". To all this we must also add the diminished capacity to enjoy situations: "all the facets of sensitivity become blurred and even food seems completely tasteless". Let us note, finally, that all hope dissipates leaving the residue of a "gray drizzle of grief" that generates a despair as palpable as the physical pain, a pain so unbearable that the only possible solution seems to be suicide." William Styron quoted by Daniel Goleman in Inteligencia Emocional pg. 51. Editorial Kairós.