Depression is a condition that manifests itself with some emotional, mental, behavioral and physical symptoms. The most striking symptom is a depressed mood and a significant decrease in interest and pleasure. A depressed person is emotionally unhappy, pessimistic and hopeless. Even the things he used to enjoy most are no longer enjoyable. The person feels sad and lonely. His interest in himself and his environment decreases. There may be intense feelings of guilt. He thinks that he is a burden to everyone and that he does not fulfill his responsibilities unnecessarily. It is usually accompanied by internal distress, narrowness, and restlessness. Sometimes he may feel like he has lost all sense of himself. Depression also hinders our mental activities. The most common symptoms are inability to concentrate and forgetfulness.
The effect of depression on behavior is slowness in movements and extreme weakness due to decreased energy. Even simple daily tasks begin to become a burden for the person. He avoids social relationships, prefers to be alone, and does not share his problems and troubles. There is also a significant decrease in sexual interest and desire.
Some physical symptoms may also occur in depression. There may also be a significant decrease in appetite, weight loss, and sometimes, on the contrary, a tendency to overeat. One of the common symptoms is insomnia. Problems such as not being able to fall asleep, frequent interruptions in sleep, or waking up too early in the morning may occur. Some people may have a tendency to oversleep. Even though these people sleep a lot, they do not wake up feeling rested. It may be accompanied by head, neck, back, joint pain and gastrointestinal complaints.
DEPRESSION DIAGNOSIS CRITERIA (According to DSM-IV-TR):
A-Presence of five (or more) of the following symptoms during a two-week period with a change in previous functioning; At least one of the symptoms must be either a depressive mood or a loss of interest or the inability to experience pleasure anymore.
1-Depressive mood lasting almost all day long, almost every day. In depressed people, depression, hopelessness and depression that continue throughout the day. They feel unhappiness. While this feeling of depression is less at the beginning of the day, it increases later in the day. The desire to do even routine things such as eating, walking, showering, and applying make-up may disappear. r.
2- A significant decrease in interest in all (or most) activities, almost every day, lasting throughout the day, or the inability to enjoy them as much as before. People with depression become unable to enjoy the things they used to enjoy. As they become socially withdrawn, they may withdraw from activities such as meeting and talking with people they always see.
3- Weight gain or weight loss, they begin to eat more or less than they normally eat.
4. - Almost every day, insomnia or hypersomnia (excessive sleep), especially the desire not to get out of bed, or the desire to go back to bed after getting out of bed, may occur. They feel as if their energy has been drained.
5- Almost every day, they experience psychomotor agitation or retardation, slowing down or regression in their daily behaviors or routine activities such as school and work. They have difficulty in completing the work they started.
6- They describe their experience as being tired-exhaustion or loss of energy almost every day, and not feeling like doing anything.
7- Almost every day They may have feelings of worthlessness, excessive or inappropriate guilt, and may define themselves as worthless, inadequate, unlovable, ugly, neglected, and undeserving of being liked. In addition, they often blame and criticize themselves for the events they experienced in their past. There may be uncertainty about the future or lack of future plans.
8- Decreased ability to think or concentrate on a certain subject, or indecisiveness, almost every day. They exhibit symptoms such as difficulty focusing on a job, book or subject, distraction, not understanding what they read, re-reading over and over, difficulty thinking.
9- Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent thoughts of suicide and plans to commit suicide. to be. There may be thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts, although not intensely.
10- People have negative thoughts about themselves, other people and the world. They evaluate the events they experience as permanent, permanent, and caused by themselves.
B- These symptoms cause clinically significant distress or distress. Causes impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning. The symptoms experienced by the person may cause difficulty or disruption in basic activities such as work and school.
C- Those who experience at least 2 of the above symptoms for at least 2 years are said to have dysthymia, which is a mild but long-term form of depression. .
All these symptoms continue continuously for at least two weeks. It prevents the person from fulfilling his/her professional, family and self-related responsibilities.
All these symptoms do not have to be present at the same time. Sometimes depression manifests itself with some of these symptoms. In addition, the symptoms may be mild, moderate or severe, and the severity of the symptoms may vary from person to person.
In addition to many psychological problems (e.g. panic attacks, social phobia, sexual dysfunctions, marital problems, family problems, loss, etc.) depression may occur
REASONS OF DEPRESSION
There are many different theoretical explanations about the causes of depression. Medical explanations suggest that it is caused by the irregularity of some neurochemical substances in the brain (for example, serotonin), therefore they recommend anti-depressant medication.
In psychological explanations, the person has false and irrational automatic thoughts about himself, other people and events in the world, intermediate beliefs. and suggests that it originates from basic schemata. People who have encountered negative life events in the past, especially in their childhood, or whose self-esteem (self-confidence) has not developed or whose ability to cope with the world has not developed sufficiently, have difficulty in coping with the existing problem and become depressed when they encounter negative life events in their current lives. With a simple analogy; No matter how beautiful and well-kept the interior of the house you live in is, if the foundations of the house are not solid, the building will collapse in an earthquake. If you make a big deal about events that some people easily get over or ignore, and if this event affects your life too much, you may think that you have a personality that is prone to depression. For example, in the case of the loss of a close person (for example, the death of the father), after an average of six months, the pain of the person decreases and becomes real. However, if more than 6 months have passed and the person is still experiencing a painful and depressive mood almost like the first day, we can think that the person's ability to cope with difficulties is low and his/her self (ego) has not developed sufficiently in the past.
The reason why everyone becomes depressed is different, but some common situations that cause depression are as follows:
If there is a member of your immediate family who has experienced depression, you may think that you are prone to depression.
The loss of a loved one, loss of a job, moving city
Health problems, especially cancer or a chronic health problem
Use of certain medications or drugs
Giving birth
Family, work, school problems
Working in a stressful environment
Financial problems.
Having another psychological problem (e.g. panic attack, social phobia, etc.)
TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION
People can become depressed for many different reasons. There are two main causes of depression; The first is the stress-related events in a person's daily life, and the second is the negative experiences and experiences in the person's past.
Just as the reason for depression is different for everyone, the way it comes out will also be different. However, currently the most successful treatment method used in the treatment of depression in the world is cognitive behavioral therapy. In this method, the psychologist teaches the person the nature of negative automatic thoughts, how to catch these thoughts, how to refute them and replace them with new, more functional and healthy thoughts. In addition, the psychologist identifies the person's automatic thoughts that feed them and the past life events that give rise to them, and works on the traumatic, negative events experienced in the past to eliminate the effects of the negative situations experienced by the person today. The main purpose of cognitive behavioral therapy is to teach the person to be his own psychologist. The person learns how to deal with the problems he/she experiences in therapy, and with the skills and methods he/she learns during the psychological support process of therapy, he/she gains the ability to actively cope with other problems that arise in the rest of his/her life. There are many people who are not in the field who claim to be able to solve it with methods such as. When getting support for depression treatment or any other psychological problem you are experiencing, be sure to question whether the person you go to is a psychologist. What many clients do is to enter keywords such as psychologist in Izmir, or I am looking for a psychologist in Izmir, etc. into search engines, go to the first site they see, and make an appointment with the person mentioned on the site. The person you consult for the problem you are experiencing must be a psychologist. However, this is not enough. People who receive a 4-year psychology undergraduate education are given the title of psychologist. However, people with the title of psychologist have general knowledge and equipment about psychology. It is not necessary to have a master's degree in psychology to do therapy. For this reason, when receiving psychological support, it is necessary to pay attention to whether the person you consult is an expert psychologist. This is the same for doctors. The general practitioner has little knowledge on every subject. But for a serious problem, you should consult a specialist doctor, not a general practitioner. For this reason, there are special areas of expertise such as heart, eye and psychiatry.
Depression is a psychological problem that can be treated, no matter how it occurs. You have a chance to get rid of this problem for life with a few sessions of psychological support and psychotherapy.
If you do not receive treatment, you may remain depressed for a long time. Depression may return and get worse. If you get the necessary help, you can start to recover within a few weeks.
In addition, depression is often seen together with other psychological problems such as panic attacks, social phobia, family and couple problems, and sexual problems.
WHEN COPING WITH DEPRESSION
Do sports, it helps keep the body fit and healthy and increases your energy level.
Don't be alone too much, spend time with your friends and family
Ask for support from those around you when you have difficulties in areas such as work or school
Stay away from alcohol
Be careful about what you eat
Do not sleep for more than 8 hours, do not need to get out of bed. Make an effort
Make opportunities for social activities
Learn new and better ways to deal with problems.
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