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.