Depression is a mental illness which often occurs in our modern-day society. Despite the high prevalence rate of depression, it is often difficult to know when you are depressed. Too few people, on top of that, find their way to help in order to treat their depression symptoms. For many people it is difficult to know when they are depressed and when they are simply going through a difficult period in life. To provide you with a clearer overview of then one is depressed, we sum up the depression symptoms, show you a case of someone who is depressed, and offer you a free depression test, in order to help you measure your extent of depressed feelings.
Depressed? What are your depression symptoms?
To check if you feel depressed, you can check your depression symptoms here. Look at yourself and how many of the following depression symptoms are applicable to you.
- Somber mood
- Lack of interest/not having fun
- Gaining or losing a lot of weight
- Often being sleepy
- Feeling agitated or weak
- Being fatigued or experiencing a lack of energy
- Strong feelings of worthlessness
- Feelings of guilt.
- Reduction in thinking and concentration capabilities
- Digestion complaints
- Changes in weight
- Complaints, which you find difficult to describe
- Suicidal thoughts
While you might feel depressed and eventually experience the above depression symptoms, it can be difficult to truly convince yourself that you are experiencing a depression and therefore that you are depressed.
Depressed? A case study.
To understand certain feelings which you might experience after reading this article, we describe a case here of a young adult, who had felt depressed for a long period of time, went to a psychologist, and still finds it difficult to place her depression symptoms even today.
I had not felt good for a long period of time. I often started to cry, I noticed that I could no longer perform at the same level. I ended up in one stressful situation after another. After a while I no longer knew how to deal with these situations properly, so I decided to just let them happen to me. There was nothing I could change about hem anyway. Also, even if I did try, there was always something I did wrong and therefore something I could do better. While other people also made mistakes, it seemed as if they were always pointing their fingers toward me. I was always the one who had to be there more. This had gone on for about a year by now, that I constantly cry, that I cannot really enjoy activities anymore, and that I feel alone. There was one friend, who always stood up for me. She was always there and showed the power to stand up for me, even when I could not do so myself. But after a while she also started to feel more and more depressed and she needed my support. However, I tried to listen to her advice more, and tried to think about myself more. This was very difficult for her. She felt like I had abandoned her. After a while she told me that she could no longer be there for me, so that I had to work on myself in order to no longer feel depressed. I even went to visit a psychologist a few times. Yet, I still found that I was not depressed, and I decided that I only felt depressed because I ended up in one stressful situation after another. I have stopped visiting the psychologist.
So, it is not always easy to recognize and acknowledge depression symptoms and to admit that you feel depressed. In life you are likely to experience many stressful situations. One is more major than the next. What is important, though, is how you deal with these situations. If you pick a coping style which becomes tiring for you after some time, it can be so that you will start to feel depressed.
Depressed? How do I deal with my depression symptoms?
There are different types of care available. If you have the feeling that you find a diagnosis depression difficult to handle, or if you find it difficult to accept your depressed feeling, then it might also be difficult to take the step to go to a psychologist for help. What you can do in that case, even if you are only experiencing a stressful situation, is taking help in a lighter form, so that you learn how to deal with these stressful situations in a better way. 15 Minutes 4 Me developed the self-help program, where you can choose yourself when you work on yourself. You can follow the program for fifteen minutes every day, so that you can see yourself improve a little bit every day.
Depressed? Take the depression test!
Do you feel depressed or do you have the feeling that certain depression symptoms are applicable to you? Then you can fill out the free and anonymous depression test here at any time.