Depression is a debilitating disease and can be fatal if not treated. However, many cases go undetected and untreated leaving these patients to suffer in silence and sometimes, they may even take their own life. Let’s explore 9 symptoms that a person suffering from depression may have. If you or your friends/family have some of these symptoms, you may want to seek medical attention as soon as possible.
Share this information with your friends and family now to spread the awareness for this often-misunderstood and under-treated disease.
You may feel down most of the day for almost every day, feel sad, empty or hopeless even when there is no reason to.
Things that you find pleasurable are no longer pleasurable anymore. You may find that you’ve lost almost all interest in your hobbies, exercise or any thing that you enjoy doing.
There is loss of weight and/or appetite even though you are not intentionally trying to lose weight.
You have difficulty sleeping or you just sleep too much.
You may feel restless, pace about, unable to calm down, but you are unable to tell when you are feeling this way. This is called psychomotor agitation. On the other hand, you can have the opposite of psychomotor agitation, which is called psychomotor retardation. With psychomotor retardation, you may feel that your movements are slowed down, you may talk slower with a lower volume than usual.
You may feel tired and fatigued daily. There is loss of energy to do even the smallest of tasks like dressing up, bathing, or even eating. You find things very difficult to do and you take a much longer time to complete them compared to usual.
You may feel worthless or feel excessive/inappropriate guilt. For example, the minor mistakes in the past may work you up and you blame yourself excessively.
You may have trouble in thinking, concentrating or deciding on things. You feel distracted, you cannot concentrate on your thoughts and may even have problems with remembering things.
You may have suicidal thoughts, come up with a plan or even attempted suicide.
If you have any thoughts of suicide, you need to seek help immediately.
For people residing in Malaysia, call The Befrienders at (03) 7956 8144 or (03) 7956 8145 for help!
For people all over the world, please visit http://www.suicide.org/ for help!
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References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
