DEPRESSION IS NOT JUST SADNESS

Imagine feeling down for an absurdly long period (sometimes with no apparent reason) with no will to be happy even if you tried and lying in bed all day with no motivation to do anything. Yeah, that's depression.

What is

So depression is a mood disorder that renders affected individuals down for long periods, uninterested in activities that they otherwise enjoyed. Note that it's a persistent long-term problem, not a few weeks or months of sadness. This occurs over two to three weeks.
Some of the signs (over a long period) include lack of interest in a previously liked activity, little to no motivation, feelings of worthlessness, despair, fatigue, unintentional weight loss, insomnia, restlessness, slowed movement, recurrent thoughts of death, etc. There isn't a definitive cause of depression according to research.
**THIS IS FOR EDUCATION, NOT FOR SELF-DIAGNOSIS. SEE A PSYCHOLOGIST FOR DIAGNOSIS.

What it's not
Depression is not just a "synonym" for being sad, even though that's one of the signs of depression. Merely calling your sadness "depression" takes away from the severity of this disorder. It's not a two-day event. It can be triggered by events like loss of family members, loss of jobs, etc, but they are contributing or facilitating factors, not direct causes of depression.

It's not a trend or anesthetic. It's a real problem among people in the world today. According to reports over 300 million people suffer from depression which is too staggering of a number to sit somewhere behind a computer and call it a fancy trend everyone wants to get on.

It's not a toggle button. You can't just be depressed or "un-depressed" by just wanting to, or being told not to. They have little emotional control over their moods so by telling them to stop being sad or be happy isn't going to change anything

Causes
As I said earlier there's no definitive cause of depression. Like the complex disorder it is, numerous events increase the risk of depression.

• Major events: This basically refers to the "not normal" response to major news or events in our lives. It could be good or bad news although most result from bad events

• Substance abuse 
• Certain medications
• Genetic vulnerability: Certain people are genetically predisposed to depression and have a higher risk compared to others.

• Biological causes: mainly changes in chemical messengers (neurotransmitter) levels (serotonin, dopamine) in the nervous system

How to deal with people with depression

Be their light

Okay so first of all, get them an appointment with a therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist. This is very important because they can carefully examine, diagnose, guide them to overcome it and prescribe treatments(only psychiatrists) to improve the mental health of depressed individuals

Don't put pressure on them to get better or become happy. Be supportive and allow them to do it at their own pace. Don't force them to talk when they don't want to and again, don't go trying to guilt them into forcing themselves to be active.

Be ready to listen when they are ready to talk and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT try to belittle whatever feeling they convey, or make them feel stupid for how they feel. It just makes things worse.

Recommend activities they enjoy, don't push them down their throat. And don't overdo it, they may give in just because you're asking a lot and that's only going to make them feel like a burden
"I'm off to play football at the park, are you down?" is better than "Get up and let's go and play football" Also "the food is ready, will you eat?" Is better than "won't you eat? You haven't eaten the whole of today."

In short, don't make them feel like a burden and don't invalidate how they feel


Have you ever dealt with this before? Do you know someone with depression? How did you handle the situation? Let us know in the comments