What is Major Depression? Symptoms can include; weight loss, insomnia, a negative self-image and even suicidal thoughts. It's not the mood itself that denotes pathology, but its extent, severity, and duration. When left untreated, depression can often go away by itself, but for many people - it persists. Depression can begin as a reaction to specific life experiences, such as the death of a loved one, job loss, divorce, or reacting to growing old.
Many people with major depression think they have only physical problems, so they seek help from a physician, and in fact they may never get to a mental health practitioner at all. Depression can come in many forms from the mildest, that may go undetected, to the most acute, requiring hospitalisation.
The milder forms of depression may be exemplified by a high executive who flies a corporate jet and who feels a lot of physical symptoms occurring over a period of time with a gradual onset.
They may feel a sense of malaise, decreased energy, or a decreased enjoyment of life, but can still work and function as far as others are concerned. But as far as he's concerned, he's only working at 30 or 40 percent of his usual capacity.
This person may be very unhappy, their life may be extremely difficult for them and others may not even notice. The fact is that many people are working and functioning in this state. This same person may respond to treatment and feel one hundred times better once their actively treated. But to the outside world, they may look exactly the same. That's the mildest form of the illness.
In acute or severe depression, the psychomotor retardation is even more intensified. The person moves slower, speaks slower. The person actively withdraws from social contacts, he doesn't want to be involved with other people, they just want to be left alone. They can no longer function as well as they could. They have no motivation to work, to be involved in anything. Nothing seems worthwhile.
In psychotic depression, there is a break with reality, here the person experiences delusions, usually associated with guilt or self blame - more extreme forms of what we see in milder forms of depression. They may have hypochondriacal delusions about their bodies, such as cancer. In the most pronounced forms of depression, called 'depressive stupor', all of the previous symptoms are aggravated. Here the same person does not respond to the outside world at all. Some are even spoon-fed to be kept alive.
In general, the subjective case of the depressed person is that they're living life beneath a cloud. People are hopeless that anything will take the pain away. It's like being tortured and seeing no way to get out of it, no way to end the pain. And that's when people not only consider
suicide, but that suicide seems like a merciful exit for them, a way to get out of what seems to be a no-exit situation.
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''Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars''
~ Khalil Gibran
