Advice and Helpful Tips

2.4 Coping with clinical depression.

Collab with Never-Harm-Alone.

Overview:

Depression - a word that most people have heard over their lifetime. Maybe someone they know had and/or has depression, maybe they were learning about it in school.

Today, the Helping Hands Club and Never Harm Alone are working to inform you about depression, its symptoms, and how you can recognize it in yourself or others.

Depression is different from sadness. It's an illness that swarms your mind with darkness - darkness that many can't escape without professional help.

Depression comes in many forms, and can be used to describe different things.

Someone might say "I'm feeling depressed" and mean mood depression, or just sadness.

Mood depression comes and goes, but major or clinical depression is much harder to heal from. It's something you have to talk or work extensively about to feel better, and can potentially heal with time. 

There is one exception - situational depression. This is caused by the situation. Sometimes, after it has ended, it might go away. Other times it stays with you, turning into clinical/major depression.

Causes of mood depression might be:

Problems at home or at school, loss of a loved one and/or issues with friendship. These can turn into clinical/major depression if not talked about/healed.

Clinical/major depression can hit anyone unexpectedly.

Let's learn about it!

Signs and Symptoms:

Depression is ever changing, and even in one person it can change depending on the time. Symptoms are never the same, or have the same intensity across the board, but here are a few common symptoms we have noticed in our experience.

Worthlessness, or loss of self value when thinking and describing yourself.

Withdrawing from social situations or things you used to enjoy doing. For example, I loved to skateboard, but suddenly I just didn't care about it anymore.

Losing energy, not wanting to get up or do things, or simply not having the motivation to do so.

A desire to hurt yourself as a way to control your life, but it can be for many reasons.

Thoughts or desires to kill yourself, thinking it would stop pain or help others.

Change in appetite, such as overeating or undereating, which sometimes develops into an Eating Disorder.

Feeling like the world is hopeless and that nothing you do or anything around you will have an impact on the world.

Self hatred.

Guilt for things you have not done/for no reason.

Sometimes, depression can lead to anxiety.

When you express three or more of these symptoms related to something happening around you it is likely that you are going through a depressive "slump" or episode. This is often temporary but still make sure you take care of yourself and seek help or advice if it worsens.