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Darren Speers has had depression (chronic dysthymia) since he was 21 years old. Since then, he has earned degrees in psychology and theology, and has worked as a gardener, factory hand, desk monkey, sales consultant, and freelance writer and editor. When not writing, he tries to improve his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, although he has some incompetency in German, can order a pizza in Latin, and inform speakers of French that he is a potato. For exercise he enjoys dancing, particularly to swing and blues music. When you have depression, you discover who your friends are. In that vein, I gratefully acknowledge my family and friends, and particularly the part of the Church who meet at St Alban’s in Highgate, who encouraged me to follow a career in writing; and more importantly, who simply encouraged me. I shan’t name names: God XE "God" knows who you are. Thank you. Though you didn’t know it, many times you helped to keep my precarious balance on reality, even through a phone call. READ A SAMPLE: Introduction First and foremost – this book is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical diagnosis or treatment. If you suspect that you or someone you know might have depression, please seek professional medical help. This book is a portrait of depression, painted with broad brushstrokes: the what, why, who and how of the illness. However, there is more than just mere descriptive information. Depression affects people in a way that a cold or a broken leg doesn’t: it changes how we think and feel about ourselves, others and the world in general. So the book also describes how depression feels, through the experience of someone who’s been there and is on the way back. Me, that is. If you’re hoping to learn which allele the Short Serotonin Transporter Gene is on or how red wine affects the reuptake of monoamine oxidase, this isn’t the book you need, but if you want to know what depression is, what causes it, what symptoms to look for, and how you can help others or be helped yourself, this book is for you. 1: Defining Depression When we look at a topic for the first time, it’s helpful to know what the important words are and what they mean. This means we must learn what it means to say that someone ‘has depression’. Before this, we need to remove mistaken beliefs about depression so we can see it clearly, like cleaning the dirt from an old coin. What depression is not Depression is not being unhappy When most people say, ‘I’m depressed’, they mean, ‘I feel unhappy‘. This is the popular use of the word, but unhappiness is only a small part of the illness called depression. The misunderstanding arises because many of us confuse the illness with one of its effects: depression makes people unhappy. But this is not the same as saying depression is being unhappy. Depression is not a personal weakness When we don’t realise the true relationship between depression and unhappiness, a problem arises. If we seem unhappy, people might ask us what’s wrong. We say ‘I have depression’. Time passes – weeks, months – but we don’t get better. People start to think that we’re emotionally or mentally weak. This belief is wrong because it puts the cart before the horse: it turns the effect into the cause. If a person breaks their leg, it isn’t because they are physically weak, necessarily. Compare Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stephen Hawking. Using a baseball bat, it would take about the same force to break Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leg as to break Stephen Hawking’s1. Both of them would be physically weakened, and this weakness results from the broken leg; the broken leg is not the cause of the weakness. In the same way, emotional weakness results from depression, but will not be the cause of it. What depression is A definition To depress something means to push it down; putting a weight on it heavier than it can bear. This is depression – the weight of life is too much to cope with. Winston Churchill called it a black dog that constantly hounded him. Depression is an illness, both biological and mental. Biologically, the levels of certain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are too high or too low. As a mental illness, depression makes a person think and feel negatively about everything, especially about themselves. These two aspects, the chemical and the mental, feed off each other. For example, we get out of bed one morning feeling tired, ill or even just a little off (also known as bleagh) and we go through the day with a negative attitude. If this goes on for too long – it would probably take longer than several days, depending on other factors – our biochemistry will be altered, with the result that we feel weighed down and miserable. It’s a vicious cycle. This definition is bland; it doesn’t convey how depression feels. That is what the next section is meant to do. A description Do you think you know what depression feels like? Maybe these images will give a better picture. The way depression feels is a combination of misery, exhaustion, apathy and despair. Have you ever felt so bad you wanted to die? That you prayed for it; begged for it; even demanded it? Imagine feeling like that every day, for weeks or months, or years, on end. That’s the misery. Do you know what it’s like when the temperature is over 40 degrees and the humidity reaches 100%? You have no energy; all you want to do is sleep. That’s the exhaustion. Picture a robot. A robot doesn’t experience emotion: it doesn’t feel joy, fear, love, anger – it feels nothing. That’s the apathy, although there is a slight difference: people with depression do feel ‘negative’ emotions such as fear, guilt and anger, all mixed together and topped off with a mammoth helping of unhappiness. Now imagine that the robot is like Marvin, in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He has no hope that his life will improve. He is so grim that computers and other robots shut themselves down permanently rather than listen to him. That’s the despair. This is depression: an illness that destroys thoughts of anything positive; that drains us of energy; that grinds us into the dirt and holds us there, like a school bully. Insane or just unwell? To be crazy or insane means a person doesn’t have a solid connection with reality. To have this connection means we understand who we are and how the world works, so we won’t jump off a building expecting to fly; we won’t stand in front of a bus thinking it will pass through us; we won’t believe our bath towel can pat its head and rub its belly simultaneously. We all know people who hold beliefs we consider odd, but how far removed from reality does a person need to be before they are considered to be insane? Broadly speaking, if a person holds to a belief that is objectively, logically and demonstrably false – such as the editors at the Sydney Morning Herald are Patagonian toothfish – and refuse to accept that there is anything abnormal about their belief, despite the evidence of their reason, their experience and the testimony of others. This type of mental illness is called a psychosis. So is depression a type of insanity? No; depression is classified as a neurosis. People with neuroses are able to acknowledge that they aren’t functioning as well as they used to, that their thinking may be irrational or illogical and that they need help to get better. Kinds of depression There are several kinds of depression. There is Unipolar or Major Depression: sufferers feel emotionally dead, physically exhausted, and mentally drained2. There is Bipolar or Manic Depression: people cycle between times of depression and mania. The manic cycle is a time when the person is hyperactive and excessively happy. However, their thoughts are just as irrational as when they are depressed. Between normality and Unipolar Depression, we find Chronic Dysthymia: it means you’ve felt miserable for a long time. Between normality and Bipolar Disorder, there’s Cyclothymic Disorder, a low-grade Bipolar Depression. There are two kinds of depression that are especially affected by our circumstances. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is caused by too little sunlight. The other kind is Postpartum Depression (PPD) that about 1 in 8 women experience, from days, even months, after the birth of their child. This is more than just the normal hormonal and emotional adjustment that new mothers experience for about a week after birth3. The symptoms of SAD and PPD can be either mild or severe. You can find out about the different kinds of depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR), which is the standard for assessing mental illnesses4. The DSM takes into account how long the illness lasts, whether it ends by itself, whether it recurs, how severe it is, and what other symptoms occur with it. Click on the cart below to purchase this book: |
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