Everybody has a bad day now and then; everyone gets sad, everyone will deal with grief. People who are suffering from the real thing, however, know that their illnesses aren't just temporary feelings caused by unpleasant events. If you're not suffering from clinical depression, your most trying day might just be more pleasant than what someone with that malady would consider a good day. When someone who is depressed has a bad day, the emotional (and sometimes physical) pain is beyond anyone else's understanding.

While a person's immediate situation does make a difference in his or her mood, it can't explain away chronic or persistent, recurring depressed moods.

Depression is one of the most misunderstood illnesses. As a result of the misunderstandings about depression, there are many myths about depression. For instance,

• Myth: people with depression are just whiney. Depression is a physical disease whose symptoms are mood disorders. Regardless of what triggers a depressive episode, the actual process of the disease involves the brain's neurotransmitters. An imbalance in the brain chemistry - especially serotonin, norepinephrin, and dopamine - disrupts people's lives in the form of mood disorders.
  
  
• Myth: People with depression are lazy. Depression is a serious illness that robs its victims of physical and mental energy. It makes as much sense to say that people with the flu are lazy.
  
  
• Myth: People with depression are just trying to get attention. While depression does sometimes trigger multiple related physical ailments, its victims are not just "playing sick"; they are sick.
  
  
• Myth: They should just "snap out of it." Try telling someone with heart disease or diabetes to "snap out of it".
  
  
• Myth: "I've always been too busy to be depressed." You've been damn lucky!
  
  
• Myth: Unlike other mental illnesses, depression isn't that bad. The symptoms of depression are typically less dramatic than those of certain other illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This does not negate the fact that depression can lead to life-threatening physical complications, frequently renders its victims disabled, and invariably makes its victims miserable.
  
  
• Myth: Anti-depressants are 'happy pills,' drugs that act as a crutch. There isn't anything happy about anti-depressants. They are serious medicines that can, themselves, be dangerous and have unpleasant side effects. Taking an anti-depressant pill does not relieve the symptoms of depression and suddenly turn one cheerful.The patient has to choose between the intensity of the mood disorder and the side effects of the medication.
  
  Anti-depressants are a long-term drug therapy; it takes several days, even several weeks, before the patient sees modest relief from the mood disorder. Even then, the depression does not go into remission, although the intensity of the symptoms may be reduced. There is no test that tells doctors which brain chemicals are out of balance and which drug will help correct that imbalance.
  
  
• Myth: "Heart attacks can be deadly. Having a bad day never killed anyone." A depressive episode is many orders of magnitude beyond what a "normie" experiences when having a bad day.
  
  Depression is a serious physical disease. Because its symptoms appear to be excessive emotional reactions... much as a diabetic coma appears to be a deep sleep at an inappropriate time.
  
  Depression and suicide are inexorably linked. According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the #10 killer in the USA. Not convinced? Google this: "+ suicide + depression" (without the quotes) You'll get over 3 million hits.
  
  
• Myth: "A suicide attempt is just a harmless bid for attention." The statistics say otherwise.
  
  
  • For instance,15% of those who are afflicted with clinical depression will take their own lives. Walk in to a meeting that is a support group for people who are clinically depressed. Do a count down: every 7th person in that room will die from suicide. 'Harmless'?
    
    
  • Suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death in 15 to 24 year olds in 1997. Since then the suicide rate in that age group has escalated.
    
    
  • In any given year in the USA, there will be over 1/2 million suicide attempts.
    
    
  • 1 in 15 suicide attempts are successful. Of those 14 out of 15 that don't result in death, most of those attempts fail due to poor technique. Some don't succeed because of timely life-saving intervention. A few fail because the attempt was not intended to succeed. Many of those people will try again; repeat attempts tend to be more successful.
    
    
  • The actual numbers are worse than what is described above. Without direct evidence (such as a suicide note or a conversation declaring an upcoming suicide) some deaths are not counted as suicide, but rather as 'accidental.' How many auto 'accidents' are not accidents? How many drug overdoses are actually suicide attempts?
    

Inspired by an article at Neurotransmissions

Labels: cause of death, clinical depression, depressed, depression, dopamine, mental illness, mood disorder, norepinephrin, serotonin, snap out of it, suicide, suicide attempts, trying to get attention