What is the “autumn blues” and why does it occur?
— In autumn, mood worsens, primarily for physiological reasons. As soon as daylight hours decrease, the production of serotonin, the hormone responsible for a good mood, decreases. The synthesis of melanin, which is responsible for the sleep/wake cycle, on the contrary, increases. Because of this, it is more difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and during the day there is increased sleepiness, says Veronika Chuprova . – People with a normal psycho-emotional background may not even notice these changes. Those who are exposed to stress and frequent mood swings are more likely to become mopey. People with low self-esteem, melancholic and phlegmatic people are at risk of seasonal deterioration in well-being.
In 90% of cases, the blues go away with the first snow - by this time the person gets used to the new life cycle, and the body adapts to a different mode of operation.
Psychotherapist Veronika Khatskevich identifies another reason for seasonal mood changes - psychological:
“There is no concept of “autumn blues” in clinical psychology,” says Veronika Khatskevich . “It’s not a medical diagnosis, unlike depression. It’s just that after the summer riot of greenery, autumn days look quite gloomy, reminding us of what a person lacks in life - attention, care, love, affection, intimacy, understanding. What matters here is how self-sufficient a person is and can rely on himself.
Another fact: decreasing daylight hours, yellowed leaves and lack of sun are perceived at an unconscious level by a person as a loss. And he lives it with sadness and sadness. At this time, a deterioration in mood and a decrease in vitality is possible, but a person quickly adapts to them. The main thing is not to suppress your feelings, otherwise the blues may drag on and develop into depression.
Factors leading to depression
- Lack of serotonin (the hormone of joy) is associated with a deficiency of vitamin D, produced in human skin under the influence of ultraviolet radiation.
- Oxygen starvation - due to a sedentary lifestyle
- Daily stress (for some - huge workloads, for others - reduction in work or temporary suspension of work; change in the usual way of life; lack of understanding of the “whole picture of the coronavirus pandemic”)
Signs of Anxious Depression
Decreased mood, constant feeling of anxiety, the future seems gloomy and unpromising, and there is a constant feeling of impending disaster.
On the part of the body: rapid heartbeat, pressure surges, increased sweating, upset stomach and intestines, loss of appetite, sudden loss of body weight, headaches, sleep disorders (insomnia, frequent awakenings at night), lethargy.
Need specialist advice?
Depression: concept, symptoms
— Depression is a condition that does not allow a person to live a full life and is characterized by a complete lack of interest in life, a feeling of one’s own uselessness, apathy, loss of strength and energy, and indifference to everything that happens. A depressed person cannot communicate normally with others - he is not interested in company, hobbies, he does not attend public events, trying to spend more time at home alone, continues Veronika Khatskevich. — About 5% of the population suffers from depression, and this disease requires drug therapy.
There are several types of depression:
1) Organic depression occurs due to an acquired or hereditary defect of the central nervous system.
2) Endogenous depression develops due to genetic predisposition.
3) Psychogenic depression occurs as a reaction of the psyche to negative events.
4) Iatrogenic depression - consequences of exposure to any drug.
5) Separately, we can distinguish symptomatic depression associated with changes in hormonal levels - as one of the signs of physical illness and depression caused by long-term alcohol or drug addiction.
If the disease is not treated, it leads to an irreversible process in the brain - neural degeneration occurs.
Important: depression does not only affect adults. It can also be diagnosed during adolescence. Every child feels sad, impressed, angry, angry or annoyed from time to time - this is normal. During the period of growing up and hormonal changes in the body, parents need to be more attentive. If lethargy does not go away even after the child has rested and feels well, I recommend contacting a psychologist or neurologist.
Six myths about depression: how to distinguish the disease from the blues and how to escape from it
Depression is a serious illness that makes a huge number of people unable to work. Among its main symptoms is suffocating apathy
Photo: EAST NEWS
The book by Anton Zainiev and former Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Daria Varlamova “Go Crazy!” became a bestseller and was just awarded the Enlightener Prize in the Natural and Exact Sciences category. Despite the fact that it is not about physics or mathematics, but about psychology and psychiatry. About those mental illnesses that make people suffer, from the point of view of others - out of the blue.
Daria and Anton themselves suffered from clinical depression; Having healed and united, they wrote this book. Let us now try, together with them, to understand what is true and what is a lie in the generally accepted ideas about depression and its treatment.
Depression is just a very bad mood. And patients just need to pull themselves together!
LIES, AND DANGEROUS . Depression is a serious illness that makes a huge number of people unable to work. Among its main symptoms is suffocating apathy. Varlamova and Zainiev compare it with the kiss of a dementor from “Harry Potter”: dementors were able to suck the soul out of a person, and he, devastated, lost his taste for life. Disease researcher Andrew Solomon said that the opposite of depression is not joy, but vitality. He himself went through this state and recalled: “Everything was deadly difficult for me. For example, the desire to pick up the telephone required an effort comparable to the need to bench press a two hundred kilogram barbell.”
Unfortunately, many people think that incredible grief and suffering must be written on the face of someone suffering from depression. Without noticing them, they begin to tell the patient something like “Get it together, you rag!”, “You’re really doing well - you should look at the disabled and starving children in Africa!”, “Remember that life is wonderful!” and similar phrases, in this case completely useless. On top of everything else, the word “depression” is used left and right as a designation for ordinary blues and bad mood (for example, after breaking up with a girlfriend or boyfriend, or because the weather is bad outside) - and many, as a result, do not refer to the disease seriously, not realizing how painful it is.
Distinguishing depression from sadness is not so difficult. With depression, apathy and bad mood, as a rule, last more than two weeks and (this is very important) do not directly depend on external circumstances. That is, the mood drops without noticeable reasons. Someone's self-esteem sharply decreases, someone sees the future in a gloomy light, someone begins to endlessly gnaw at themselves for past mistakes... Depression does not spread to just one area of life, but to all of them at once (for example, if a person feels unwell at work, and in the evenings he dances at parties and has affairs, he is not depressed - most likely he just needs to change jobs). Finally, depression is usually associated with psychosomatic disorders, and they can be very different. There are often inexplicable headaches, shortness of breath, a feeling of heaviness throughout the body... Or a person has an increased appetite, he “eats” his unpleasant sensations - and sometimes, on the contrary, he does not eat anything at all. He may have chronic insomnia, or, on the contrary, he may sleep all day long, trying to escape the world and its problems.
The suffering of a person who has had all the joy removed from his life can be unbearable and can lead to suicide. Although at the peak of depression, the patient, as a rule, lacks will: he simply does not have the strength for anything, including suicide. Paradoxically, suicidal tendencies can appear during treatment, at the very beginning. Sometimes, when taking modern drugs, the will and energy return to the patient earlier than the good mood. And this period is considered the most dangerous: the person is still very ill, but he can already commit suicide.
Distinguishing depression from sadness is not so difficult. With depression, apathy and bad mood usually last more than two weeks
Photo: EAST NEWS
Antidepressants don't help with anything
THEY HELP, ALTHOUGH IT’S NOT SO EASY TO SELECT THE SUITABLE ONE. Whatever one may say, they are the main way to combat depression. The book by Varlamova and Zainiev devotes many pages to the mechanism of their effect on neurons and neurotransmitters. They are their ardent supporters.
Although opponents of pills will immediately say that the brain is the most complex and least studied organ in the human body. And psychiatry as a science was born just over a century ago. And the pills that make it possible to achieve a cure began to be produced in the 1950s - 80s. And yet, each patient suffering from depression, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder needs a different combination of medications—what works for one may not work for another. In the meantime, while the correct treatment is being selected, the patient may become disillusioned with the pills...
In fact, there is a fairly wide movement of “anti-psychiatrists” who are categorically against modern psychiatry as such. They compare it in its current state with medieval astronomy, which knew neither Copernicus nor Galileo. And they like to remember the experiment carried out in 1973 by psychologist David Rosenhan. He and seven of his colleagues specifically decided to become patients in psychiatric hospitals, complaining of hallucinations (each told the doctor that he heard a voice repeating the words “empty”, “hollow” and “splash”, but otherwise behaved completely normally). Although all the experimenters were malingerers, they were immediately given serious diagnoses (mostly schizophrenia) and were given medications for several weeks - they barely got out of the hospitals!
Then the management of one clinic, having learned about the experiment, stated that they certainly would not let a single simulator slip through. Then Rosenhan announced that he would specifically refer them to several “dummy patients” over the course of three months. As a result, the clinic's management caught more than forty imaginary patients... and were shocked when Rosenhan admitted that he had deceived the doctors and did not send a single pretender to the hospital at all!
And yet, there is a stubborn fact: antidepressants work, they have a very high cure rate. There are thousands of living people whom they pulled out of hell, and they are wildly grateful to them for this.
Anton Zainiev says: “A drop in mood, a drop in appetite, the appearance of apathy - these are all nephrophysical processes, specific malfunctions in the brain, in nerve cells. Yes, we don’t fully know what exactly leads to certain failures, and we cannot take an X-ray, as in the case of a broken arm. But we understand that there is a glitch. On the one hand, a person’s neural connections become less branched, on the other hand, the brain lacks a specific neurotransmitter, presumably serotonin. And all this can be fixed with the help of tablets. It has long been proven that if you take patients with depression, divide them into two groups, and give the first dummy pills, a placebo, and the second - real drugs, people in the second group are much more likely to be cured."
If depression is the result of biochemical processes in the brain, then why does a person fall into it after tragic events and cannot get out for months?
EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED. Depression is conventionally divided into endogenous (caused by internal reasons) and exogenous (caused by external factors - constant failures at work, death of a spouse, etc.). But one can smoothly flow into another. On the one hand, a lack of magnesium can cause a very real existential crisis in a person. On the other hand, obsessive unpleasant thoughts can change the biochemistry in the head. Let’s say a person’s loved ones died: first, depression began due to psychological stress, then he constantly thinks about it, “works himself up” - and changes the neurochemistry of the brain.
And psychotherapy, therefore, is not needed. This is talk about nothing, just a way for a doctor to make a lot of money by chatting!
NO. Daria Varlamova: “It happens that a person has some kind of terrible spiritual crisis - but in fact, the body simply lacks a certain substance. The medicine generally equalizes the affective state: it removes dips in mood, gives energy, and reduces anxiety. But, having experienced depression, I began to believe in psychotherapy. In my case it was cognitive behavioral, although there are other methods. With depression, a lot of mental garbage arises: low self-esteem, or “toxic” perfectionism: either I have to do everything perfectly, or I’m a nonentity... This is all well removed by psychotherapy, and medications can and should be combined with it.”
If I go to the doctor, everyone will think I'm crazy. They will also put you in the hospital. And in general - this is a stigma! Then they find out about it at work...
NOT TRUE . Since Soviet times, there has been a horror of “registration in a mental hospital,” but now there is not even such a wording. Nobody will send you to a hospital with anxiety disorders or depression, unless we are talking about very severe cases: there are enough patients in hospitals without you. Of course, if you show up to a psychiatrist with an ax and say that reptilians are hunting you, a place will be found instantly, but, most likely, you will be prescribed medications and you will be treated on an outpatient basis: according to statistics, less than 1 percent of visits to a psychiatrist end in hospitalization.
In the future, problems may arise only with obtaining a driver's license. But there shouldn’t be any troubles when applying for a job - officially the medical institution has no right to show information about you to anyone.
Daria Varlamova says: “Personally, it seems to me that it is better to go to a good private psychiatrist, because the state psychoneurological dispensary is a lottery. You can end up with an adequate specialist, or you can end up with a very inadequate one, who will not help you in any way, and even diagnoses you incorrectly. Moreover, if you are painfully afraid that you will be included in some “lists”, “archives”, etc. — it’s better to go to a private owner: there are definitely no “lists of crazy people” there. But in any case, if you find bad symptoms in yourself after looking through a book like ours, it is better to quickly contact a specialist rather than torment yourself. Unfortunately, in Russia, many people think that as long as they don’t see hallucinations and don’t talk to Martians, it’s too early to go to a psychiatrist, you just need to take a break and “pull yourself together.” And as a result they suffer.”
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a hellish method of punitive psychiatry, after which people become vegetables.
NOT TRUE . ECT has a very bad reputation (thanks to movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Frances). It is now rarely used, largely due to the same reputation created by filmmakers. It is considered a barbaric method, appropriate only in cases of severe, pill-resistant depression.
ECT has a very bad reputation thanks to movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
But among Western psychiatrists there is a different position. Some of them, themselves prone to depression, strictly punish their colleagues: “If I get depression, don’t treat it with pills, immediately take me to ECT!” It's actually a painless and effective procedure that reboots the brain—like a frozen computer with too many programs open. A common complication is amnesia: you can completely forget what happened to you in the last year (in House, a patient after ECT lost all his memory forever, but this is also a fantasy of the writers; in reality, memory is usually restored).
A truly barbaric and hellish method of directly influencing the brain is lobotomy, a method of excision of certain lobes for the purpose of healing from mental illness. But no one uses it now. At the same time, the Portuguese scientist Egas Moniz, who invented the lobotomy, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949. In the 90s, when Monesh had already died, they tried to retroactively deprive him of the Nobel Prize - but to no avail, the Nobel Committee defended him. In his difficult times, when there were no antidepressants, no haloperidol, no mood stabilizers, a lobotomy looked like a panacea.
Now in Britain, patients with an extremely severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, who are on the verge of suicide due to the disease, sometimes undergo neurosurgical operations, making neat incisions on the so-called. "striatum", the part of the brain believed to be responsible for disease. And sometimes after that it really goes away. However, this is an extremely risky procedure.
SEVERAL DIAGNOSIS FOR MOVIE CHARACTERS
Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Aviator): obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Movie characters sometimes wash their hands several times, step over cracks in the asphalt (and if they step on them, they come back and still step over them), arrange objects in a strictly defined, impeccable order, close and open the front door, trying to carry out this action “correctly.” Only they understand what “correct” or “ideal” is.
All these are symptoms of OCD, a very multifaceted and painful disease. Symptoms can be different - from a desire for pathological cleanliness (after all, there are a lot of dangerous microbes around!) to painful thoughts that come to mind (a believer in a church thinks that he can desecrate icons in some terrible way, a person who loves children suddenly thinks about that children can be seriously hurt, etc. - despite the fact that, naturally, they are not going to do any of this). And someone, going outside, is afraid that they forgot to turn off the iron, and now a fire will start at home. He comes back, checks, goes out again - and thinks: “What if he checked poorly?..” And so - 15 times. And he is perfectly aware of the absurdity of his behavior. It’s just that irrational anxiety is stronger than logic.
Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Aviator) suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder
Photo: still from the film
All of these are obsessions, or, to put it more simply, obsessions, they are also obsessions, they are also obsessions. As the hero of the same DiCaprio said in “Inception”, the most tenacious parasite is the idea: if it settles in the head, you cannot get rid of it. For people with OCD, obsessive thoughts come endlessly, spinning in their heads like a sticky melody, causing terrible discomfort. To “shake off” them, you need to take actions that look idiotic in the eyes of others. For example, go to the bathroom and, as it were, metaphorically wash off all the bad things. Or wash your hands to literally remove germs from them. Or say certain phrases in a certain sequence. Or go home for the sixteenth time and check the iron. These are compulsions, obsessive rituals.
Perhaps these are fragments of magical consciousness, attempts to find connections between completely different phenomena. “As a child, Turner tried many times to convince himself that it was stupid to try to prevent the sudden death of his mother by avoiding stepping on the cracks in the asphalt of the sidewalk near the school playground. And yet he never stepped on them - and my mother remained alive.” This is from Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, and this is quite a description of OCD, which the hero, however, did not develop with age - but many unfortunate people develop.
There is another theory. As Anton and Daria write in their book, “the origins of OCD lie in the same place as other anxiety spectrum diseases, but the peculiarity of this disorder is that the striatum is involved in its development and the amygdala is not involved (therefore the emotion of fear itself is not realized on its own). Dysfunctions in the striatum create an alarming background, the prefrontal cortex “converts” it into specific fears, and the thalamus creates rituals that protect against them. Moreover, the leap to each new stage of the cycle, as it were, consolidates the previous one. This creates a vicious circle that is very difficult for the patient to break.”
Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes' character in the TV series "Homeland"): bipolar affective disorder (BAD).
In Soviet times, it was known as manic-depressive psychosis. The stages of euphoria, ecstasy and delight in this disease are replaced by stages of deep depression. You flew as if on wings and felt like a king, but then suddenly everything became very bad, you wanted to lie down and look at one point. A person in a manic stage is able to collect loans from a bank and give all the money to the poor (“Well, I’m making the world a better and brighter place!”) or buy a sailboat with the goal of going around the world. It is about them that the saying “keep me seven” was invented. Well, when this stage gives way to depression, the person simply finds himself in hell.
There is a mild and simple stage of bipolar disorder, the so-called cyclothymia, when an inexplicable elation (hypomania) is replaced by slight despondency and melancholy. Many believe that Pushkin, who did not like summer, but loved autumn very much, had seasonal cyclothymia. In particular, it is this outburst that explains the number of brilliant texts that he once wrote in Boldino without looking up from the paper. Pushkin, of course, was not diagnosed, but this version looks quite plausible.
Hypomania for creative people is a desirable and blissful state. You are full of inspiration and energy, you don’t understand where good thoughts come from, and you don’t know fatigue. Everything seems to be fine, but alas, this can turn into BAR-2, when hypomania gives way to full-blown depression. Otherwise, in BAR-1, an even more severe disease, where we are no longer talking about hypomania, but about mania in its pure form. This is where psychosis can begin—let’s say, delusions of grandeur. For example, a euphoric person will begin to think that he can jump from balcony to balcony, like a superhero from the movies - and it will all end sadly.
Daria Varlamova says: “Mild hypomania is what any person would dream of, it seems to me. This probably sounds unprofessional, but nevertheless... But there is a group of medications, mood stabilizers, that relieve this manic state. They can be combined with antidepressants - that is, “cut” a little from above and below, so that the person does not go into ecstasy or agony, but remains somewhere in the middle. The most famous mood stabilizer is lithium. It is now considered outdated, but, nevertheless, it is one of the most effective methods for pronounced “bipolar.” They complain about it that it creates a somewhat “gray”, “nothing” mood, but it removes peaks and valleys quite effectively.”
Rambo (Sylvester Stallone's character in several films): post-traumatic stress disorder
As we remember, Rambo is a veteran of the Vietnam War who had to face torture and other horrors. He has classic PTSD. It is characterized by intrusive memories of the trauma experienced (they can also appear in the form of nightmares), attempts not to think or talk about it (for example, a flight attendant who witnessed a plane crash quits her job in aviation), dark thoughts, a negative attitude towards oneself and /or to others and unwillingness to communicate with them. These are the three main symptoms - and there is also partial amnesia, when a person’s memory of a terrible event is simply erased (then it can suddenly return).
Hollywood is very fond of making films about PTSD - it is a convenient plot driver in thrillers, and in general the characters with it look dark, harsh and effective. Batman, for example, also suffers from trauma (both his parents were killed in his childhood - since then he has become a “dark knight”, gloomy and unsociable, who finds it difficult to even start relationships with women). But this disease, unfortunately, is far from just a movie one - it occurs, for example, in many soldiers who returned from “hot spots”, in women who survived rape, and so on.
But it doesn’t happen to many people. Why do some people react extremely painfully to trauma, while others react relatively calmly? As Varlamova and Zainiev write, “according to one theory, the disorder is caused by a malfunction of the hippocampus (say, in patients with PTSD its increased blood supply is found). This part of the brain is responsible for working with memory. It is assumed that a stressful memory is not “archived”, so the body experiences it over and over again as if it were happening in reality.”
Treatment of depression and prevention of “autumn blues”
— There are two main directions in the treatment of depression: psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological. Drug treatment involves the use of the latest generation antidepressants. Their main function is the suppression of autonomic and somatic dysfunctions, explains Veronika Khatskevich . -Psychotherapeutic treatment is stepwise and consistent. In severe forms, these two methods are combined. Psychotherapy may be sufficient in the lungs.
For the “autumn blues,” antidepressants are not needed. Walk more, look for something new and interesting for yourself. Practice light therapy: add bright colors to your interior, and waking up will become much easier. Take vitamin D, or even better, plan a vacation in mid-autumn - “sunbathing” has a positive effect on the psyche.
Don't ignore physical activity. During sports, the brain is actively saturated with oxygen and synthesizes endorphins - joy hormones. Dancing, swimming pool, yoga - choose what really brings you pleasure.
Spend more time with friends - positive emotions and pleasant meetings do not allow a bad mood to take hold in your life.
Veronica Chuprova is sure: you don’t need to prepare for the blues in advance, but a special diet will help you survive it much easier:
“In August, there is no need to prepare for the fact that in a month the leaves will turn yellow and everything will suddenly become bad - self-programming can work here,” Veronika Chuprova . — Follow a daily routine: the body must rest fully. Include more foods rich in tryptophan in your diet: meat, cheese, nuts, dates, cottage cheese, peanuts, sesame seeds, yogurt, legumes, mushrooms. This amino acid is a precursor to serotonin. Its deficiency can lead to vitamin B3 hypovitaminosis.
Eat more vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C: oranges, tangerines, sauerkraut, grapefruit, sea buckthorn, Brussels sprouts, parsley, black currants.
Plan your day: for many, this helps to relieve stress and relax. Switch up your activities: if you spent the whole day at the computer, be sure to take a walk in the evening. Listen to yourself more and everything will return to normal.
The first signs of depression
But it happens that the uncomfortable state drags on, and here the main thing is to recognize the signs of a real illness in time. As a rule, these are problems with sleep, from insomnia to the inability to wake up, “ragged” sleep, when you wake up several times a night. And sometimes it happens: no matter how much you sleep, you still wake up tired. Absolutely little things that used to mean nothing now cause tears or intense anger. Outbursts of irritation begin with others, with oneself, with the whole world. Performance decreases - because dark thoughts make it impossible to concentrate, and problems with sleep lead to memory problems. You don’t want to communicate, you don’t want to leave the house or even get out of bed - all your free time a person lies with his head covered and looking at the wall.
All these are the first, very early stages of depression. And if you have been observing them for more than a month, do not explain it by bad weather or the desire to return to summer, do not look for reasons at all - they are not that important. Don’t talk about “it will go away on its own”: depression is a hormonal imbalance, it’s the same breakdown in your body as a dislocation or rupture of knee ligaments. After all, in this case you won’t try to walk on twisted legs, hoping that “it will go away on its own”? In the case of depression, everything is exactly the same: you need to contact a specialist and follow the treatment that he prescribes.
Saving a life
If this is not done, exactly the same thing will happen as with any disease - it will go into a chronic stage and give complications that you will not like. In severe stages of depression, people who are outwardly well begin to attempt suicide, so timely contact with a specialist can save your life no less.
Most often this is a psychiatrist. But you can also consult a psychotherapist. It is important that this is a specialist with a medical education who has the right to prescribe the necessary medications. Psychologists in our country are not a medical specialty, so in this case a psychologist will not be able to help you.
There is no need to be afraid of pills, just as there is no need to be afraid of psychiatrists. Treatment of a person with depression who has sought help themselves is classified as counseling and treatment. Such a patient is not subject to mandatory dispensary registration in the PND, so the diagnosis will not affect your future life in any way - except for the fact that it will actually help you feel better.
How to distinguish depression from blues? List of signs below
With depression, a person seems to be frozen: his words, thoughts and even movements are slowed down and inhibited. The mood is low. But this is not pain or anger, not bitterness, not sadness. This is the feeling of a cotton blanket. It’s as if all the emotions inside have gone out, as if someone has turned off the light and you can’t feel joy, pleasure, or even satisfaction. But you feel indifference. The most zealous guardians of cleanliness look indifferently at dishes that have not been washed for a week. Fashionistas no longer care what they look like. Businessmen don't care about their sinking business. Just don’t move, just don’t get out of bed, don’t leave the house, don’t listen to anyone.
Often, a depressed person lies in bed not only because there is no need to get up/don’t want to/everything is pointless, but because it is physically difficult for him to do so. You feel constant fatigue, as if you were unloading the cars the day before, and your body begs for only one thing - to go to bed, sleep, not talk, not think.
A clear sign of clinical depression is that a person becomes unable to experience joy, pleasure, or satisfaction. It's hard to believe, but it's difficult to make a depressed person laugh (almost impossible). Things and phenomena that used to please and amuse cease to matter. You don’t feel like eating or drinking, or vice versa, you feel sad all the time. You are not interested in everything around you. You do not experience emotions, and everything that you previously loved is now an empty place for you.
Self-esteem decreases. Objective events do not go away and a depressed person begins to self-flagellate: “What kind of father am I if I don’t want to see my children”, “What kind of housewife am I if I can’t bring myself to wash the floors”, “Lord, I’ve completely fallen down! It's horrible! Oh well." You feel like an unnecessary, worthless, terrible person, but you can’t help yourself. Depression is a strong thing.
Sleep disturbances are another sign of clinical depression. You can't sleep until 4 am. You toss and turn, cry often (the tears flow by themselves. You may not even understand why you are crying), and then you cannot force yourself to get out of bed even at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Or, on the contrary, early awakenings have become the norm for you (they weren’t before).
Decreased sexual desire. A depressed person has zero libido. Even what used to be incredibly exciting now doesn’t cause any desire.
You may feel a dull, widespread pain in your chest, as if you had been hit by something large and heavy. What is called a “stone on the chest.”
Agree, the usual blues only vaguely resemble depression. The blues will disappear sooner or later, but depression does not go away that easily. She needs to be treated.
How do I know if I have depression?
Have you noticed that many concepts and terms used in psychotherapy have long turned into a lexicon: “Are you a schizophrenic??!!”, “God, you’re a moron”, “It’s all stress!”, “Stop looking for sores in yourself, hypochondriac " These and similar phrases can be heard every day. However, people have little idea what they are talking about. Most often, they “reward” epithets from psychotherapy in response to some action or inaction. And most often these epithets have a negative connotation.
The same thing happened with depression.
The vast majority of people are sure that depression is nothing more than excuses, whining, blues and laziness. But clinical depression is an illness that a person cannot cope with on his own (as with most emotional disorders, such as neurosis or panic attacks).
This attitude towards depression among the people has done a very disservice to those who are really sick, who need help in fighting depression: people believe that depression is something frivolous and “you just need to pull yourself together.”
How to distinguish depression from blues?
How emotional burnout and autumn blues manifest themselves
Their signs are really very similar to each other. Most often you can observe apathy, reluctance to do anything, loss of interest in your main activities. And if emotional burnout occurs in the autumn, then it will be almost impossible to distinguish them from each other. Often, only specialists with extensive experience will be able to do this - they will rely on how long your condition lasts, because, as we noted above, burnout does not happen overnight.
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What happens if depression is not treated?
As you may have guessed, the autumn blues are a temporary condition. Most often, it goes away on its own and does not spoil the quality of our life. But if depression is not treated, it can lead to the most disastrous consequences. “Unfortunately, if left untreated, this emotional disorder will only grow, poisoning a person’s life day after day. And in the most severe cases, depression can end in suicide - at some point a person will simply get tired of suffering and decide to take this desperate step. It is important to understand that during a period of depression, we gradually develop a tunnel perception of our surroundings: we see only our pain and do not even understand that it could be different. That’s why the sooner you detect signs of depression and see a doctor, the better,” explains the psychologist.
