When are you depressed?

It is not easy to know when you are depressed. Furthermore, a depressed feeling is difficult to differentiate from several 'normal' phases of life which are characterized by insecurity. A help provider can often quickly check if you are or are not depressed. However, it is also useful for you to learn to be able to recognize alarm signals yourself. In this article, the most common alarm signals of a depressed feeling are summed up.

How do you recognize a depressed feeling?

A depressed feeling is often difficult to recognize, because it can show itself in different ways. Furthermore, it often happens that different symptoms from the different forms express themselves in one and the same person. While we consider there to be different ways for depression to express itself, we do not speak of different mental illnesses. A depressed feeling should first off be considered as a more general illness, which has a range of ways of expressing itself. A depressed feeling usually expresses itself in 3 areas of life: the psychological experience, the physical experience, and the social experience.

Depressed? The psychological experience?

If we consider a psychological experience of a depressed feeling, we consider both issues in thinking processes as well as in emotional processes. In a depressed feeling you will thus notice that you:

  • Become sadder
  • Are no longer so positive about the future
  • Are not motivated at all
  • Prefer not to get out of bed at all

These are thus the emotional aspects of a depressed feeling. A depressed feeling also influences thinking processes such as ability to focus, memory, and production of stress hormones. If you are depressed, chances are that you start forgetting more and more things and that you no longer can focus well. Also, people with a depressed feeling experience more stress, which puts extra pressure on your brain.

Depressed? The physical experience?

A depressed feeling often has a large influence on your body. If you are depressed, chances are that you suddenly experience all kinds of issues. Stress namely makes it so that your muscles tense up, which can cause muscle ache after some time. Because of the long-term fatigue chances are also larger that you fall ill. Your immune system weakens when you are depressed.

Depressed? The social experience?

If you do not feel like doing anything, going out with friends seems like something far away from you. People with a depressed feeling often feel very alone and isolate themselves from other people, which in turn can cause depressed feelings. If you are depressed, you also feel like the people around you do not understand you The chance that you thus actively try to explain how you feel is small because you fear that you will be rejected. This, too, has an isolating effect.

The treatment for a depressed feeling?

There are different ways of treating a depressed feeling. What we want to mention is that it is useful to treat a depressed feeling actively. A depressed feeling is an issue which does not just disappear from one day to the next. Depression often has deep roots and therefore requires a more active plan of action. 15 Minutes 4 Me developed an online self-help program, which guides people with a depressed feeling from home. The program was developed by psychologists and doctors and is based on systematic and cognitive therapeutic techniques. According to research in 2011, the average participant feels 40% happier after 3 weeks.

Test your depressed feeling here!

Would you like to know in what stage your depressed feeling is? Then take the free depression test here!