Health, relationships, love and depression.

Health, relationships, love. Three things that leave us down and depressed so often in life, even leading us to suicide in some cases.

Medication, therapy, counseling. Three things that leave us feeling better. I know it's not rocket science, but stay with me on this one for a few more seconds.

Studies are constantly released, the content full of solutions to depression, therapy and medication are the two common prescribed solutions and yet we're still depressed. Why?

Unfortunately, It's not know exactly what causes depression. There are numerous theories about the origins such as biological and genetic factors, environmental influences, and childhood or developmental events.
Various studies and research projects undertaken have usually stated that clinical depression is most often caused by the influence of more than just one or two factors.

For instance (and this one stunned me the most), a person whose mother had recurrent major depression may have inherited a vulnerability to developing clinical depression (genetic influence). This combined with how the person thinks about him- or herself (psychological influence) in response to the stress of going through a divorce (environmental influence), may put him or her at a greater risk for developing depression than someone else who does not have such influences. In short Genetic + psychological influence, then + enviromental influence = A formula for certain depression.

The causes of clinical depression are often different for various people. Sometimes a bout of depression can appear to come out of nowhere at a time when everything seems to be going fine. Other times, depression may be directly related to a significant event in our lives such as losing a loved one, a traumatic experience, or battling a chronic illness.

I have done my own research into this, and have recently started to talk about it in a group i started:

Depression - The need to know To join the group, you will need to check out Mychillpill, this is also a great resource for depression sufferers.

A message to...

Need a spare shoulder to lean on?

Talking - It's something that benefits everyone. Since the dawn of time, humankind has needed to talk, from the caveman carving his language onto walls, to the modern man posting his feelings onto the pages of the internet. There's no argument, we need to talk.

As our modern lives progress we're finding new channel's and platforms in which to communicate our feelings. In most cases, we end up turning to the internet when we want to express ourselves or lack information and want to search for it.

I have suffered from mental health issues for many years now, it's something i cannot escape, instead i choose to address it. As someone who works, lives, and breathes (literally) everything internet, i have chosen to dedicate this post to my latest internet fixation. Mychillpill.

Mychillpill isn't administered orally, but the resulting effect is the same. In recent years, people are turning to social networks online in order to chat, exchange information and in general past time. I myself have about 5 online profiles on different social networks.

I've been spending most of my time on mychillpill as of late, why? Simply because as someone who's life is dominated by mental health issues, i have found myself feeling quite normal when I'm on the site. I've posted my blog there, started groups and discussions and have been able to open interesting dialogues with people like myself.

Ive suffered from anxiety, depression and sleep problem's for many years, to be able to meet similar people creates a feeling of normality, it creates a space in which your 'special characteristics' become normal, so the main focus moves onto to simply communicating as any 'normal' person gets to.

I'd like my readers to check it out, and please do tell me what you think. It's new and open to development, so we have the opportunity to all have an input into something we can gain from and help grow.

Tackling Depression - My Theory

Depression or as Freu called it "everyday misery" - 'A condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason.'

A definition any depressed person, or person that has suffered from depression will be able to relate to.

I'd like to raise something in this article that i've spent a lot of time in the past talking to friends about. It's something i feel a lot of depressed people don't always consider enough.

A large part of experiencing depression is how much time we spend with our own thoughts, pondering on events and outcomes that may or may not have happened.

When in the process of doing this, we tend to go over the same sequence again and again. Whilst doing so, every time we return to the beginning and begin the process again, we make the situation bigger and so on it goes.
Think - go back to the beginning - think again - and so our problem gets bigger and bigger until we're unable to cope with our own feelings.

What if we all tried to cut this process off? If we were able to say to ourselves 'right, im not going to go over this situation yet again' what would happen?

My theory is, that actually we would find it much more easier to handle our feelings of depression because they wouldn't get out of hand with all the invested time we spent on them.

I'd as many people as possible to try this out, is it realistic? Did it help at all?

Depression - The symptoms

I have been working on various things to add to 'Down with Depression', but i feel before i move onto more exact articles on depression, i need to cover something that is crucial to understanding depression... symptoms.

Stress usually leads on to feeling down and miserable, yes, we have all experienced this at some point in our lives.
The difference is when you're suffering from depression, these feelings will last for weeks, months and even years in some cases. In addition to feeling low most or all of the time, many other symptoms can occur in depressive illnesses. I wanted to highlight some of the typical symptoms of depression:

- Being unable to enjoy things that would normally be enjoyable.
- Losing interest in everyday activities and normal day to day occasions.
- Constantly feeling tired and having no energy, regardless of sleep.
- Difficulty sleeping and at times waking up early. Some may even feel that there is nothing to get up for at all.
- Having no interest in food or over eating, this usually results in loosing or gaining too much weight.
- Loosing your sex drive.
- Finding it difficult to concentrate.
- Feeling anxious, restless or irritable.
- Losing self-confidence.
- Avoiding contact with people.
- Finding its hard to make up your mind on certain decisions.
- Feeling useless and inadequate - 'a waste of space'.
- Feeling guilty about situations that you wouldn't normally worry about.
- Feeling hopeless - that nothing will make things better.

Finally, one that is obvious to most, Suicide. If you're contemplating something like this, speak to someone. Talking will help and always remember that two heads are better than one.

We've looked at the lowdown of depression, the real ins and outs. We've focused on the various categories and in this article we've looked at some of the typical symptoms. I have been working on the next few articles intensively to ensure the content is full to the brim with information and reading material people actually want. There will be reviews, exciting news on new social networks as well as a lot more, including links to others resources, related sites and more.

Depression and being social...

Depression is a serious illness, most of you will already know this. Health professionals use the terms 'depression', 'depressive illness' or 'clinical depression' to refer to something very different from the common experience of feeling miserable, or fed up, for a short period of time.

The facts talk for themselves

If you're depressed, you may have feelings of extreme sadness that could last for a considerable amount of time. These feelings are powerful enough to effect your every day life, and usually last for weeks, months, instead of days.

Depression is quite a common condition, and about 15% of people will have a bout of severe depression at some point in their lives. However, the exact number of people with depression is hard to estimate because many people do not get help, or are not formally diagnosed with the condition.

Most of the 5,000 suicides committed each year in the UK are linked to depression. On average, 15% of people with recurrent depression (repeated attacks) have an increased risk of suicide.

Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men, although men are far more likely to commit suicide. This may be because men are more reluctant to seek help for depression.

Depression can affect people of any age, including children. Studies have shown that 2% of teenagers in the UK, are affected by depression.

People with a family history of depression are more likely to experience depression themselves. Depression affects people in many different ways and can cause a wide variety of physical, psychological (mental) and social symptoms.

In my next posting ill talking about Mychillpill. It's a new social network aimed at those of us with extra mental health needs. Stay tuned...

Depression - The names and levels

Depression is a vast and complex illness that must be thoroughly understood first in order for someone to decide if the symptoms match those of the ones they are experiencing.
In order to understand depression, let's first look at how the illness is categorised:

Three common categories that depression will be grouped into when referring to it are:

Mild depression
Mild depression doesn't usually stop you leading your daily life but makes everything harder to do and seem less worthwhile.

Moderate depression
Moderate depression has a significant impact on your daily life.

Severe depression
If you feel depressed or uninterested in doing anything and daily activities are almost impossible, you may have severe depression. You may also have physical symptoms, including tiredness or a loss of appetite.

As well as these levels of depression, there are four commonly diagnosed variations of depression:

Dysthymia
This is chronic mild depression (lasting at least 2 years).

Bipolar affective disorder
This is a type of depression in which your mood swings between high and low. This is also sometimes called manic depression.

Seasonal affective disorder
This is a condition in which the sufferer will experience large moods swings effected by the seasons.

Postnatal depression
Some women become depressed soon after childbirth.

One the greatest downfalls in treating depression, is the fact that so many people go through it without realising their illness and also not know how to treat it. As stated, the first step is acknowledging what you have. In my next posting we'll look at the symptoms and start concentrating on way's to treat depression.