What are major depressive disorder symptoms (this disorder is also often called as clinical depression)? Well ... sometimes most people will feel depressed, low, or sad. These feelings are one of the ways of your body to express what you feel, like to lose life’s struggles.
But when you feel intense sadness (such as worthless, hopeless, or helpless) and the this condition lasts for many days to many weeks or even months, and even give a significant negative impact to many activities that you have, then you should begin to ask to yourself whether or not you have major depressive disorder!
But when you feel intense sadness (such as worthless, hopeless, or helpless) and the this condition lasts for many days to many weeks or even months, and even give a significant negative impact to many activities that you have, then you should begin to ask to yourself whether or not you have major depressive disorder!
Major depressive disorder is something that can be more than sadness and can affect your daily’s activities. It is not only simple disorder -- sometimes it can cause serious symptoms that need medical assessment and treatment.
Fortunately this serious disorder is treatable! With the right treatments, most people with clinical depression will feel better. If you in doubt about your condition, talk with your doctor and psychiatrist to get the right advices and for more in-depth information about major depressive disorder symptoms!
Types of depression
Clinical depression is one of depression types, and other types of depression include:
- SIMD (Substance-induced mood disorder).
- Psychotic & postpartum depression.
- SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
- Bipolar depression.
- And dysthymia (mild depression which is less severe than major depression, but the symptoms of dysthymia can linger longer).
Furthermore, there are some special conditions that you need to know, which include; depression in women, depression in men, depression in children or young individuals (before the age of 18), and in elderly people.
These special conditions may influence the symptoms that you have! For example, men with this disorder are more likely to express their depression symptoms with alcohol abuse, more anger, or irritability instead of symptoms that express sadness.
Major depressive disorder symptoms
There are many signs that can be used to analyze whether someone has this disorder or not! But don’t make a diagnosis on your own. To get a clearly diagnosis, you need to see your doctor or psychiatrist!
The following are some of major depressive disorder symptoms:
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| Table source: MayoClinic |
Unfortunately, there are still no clearly answers about the causes and how to prevent clinical depression with exact ways. But many doctors usually advise to keep aware from any factors that may trigger this disorder!
You may also like to read about ways on how to get over depression, before continuing!
Once again, there is still not known exactly what factors or causes of depression! But there are some factors or conditions that may put you at higher risk of having this disorder, which may include:
- You have certain childhood trauma, such as; loss of a parent (especially before you get 10 years of old) or physical abuse in the childhood. These traumas may lead to changes in the brain (permanently changes) that will make someone more susceptible to experience major depressive disorder symptoms.
- You have a family member with this disorder or other mood disorders!
- Problems in your life! People are more likely to have higher chance of having this disorder when they get a lot of problems in their life, which may include, loss of job (will generate serious financial problems), having tight schedules that can cause more stress (high stress), loss of an individual that you love a lot (like your parents, your husband or wife, or your children), and so on!
- Other conditions that can increase your risk of having some major depressive disorder symptoms may include changes in hormones (women may have more hormone changes than men -- this is one of possible reasons for the fact that most of people with depression is women, not men)), neurotransmitters (naturally substances in the brain linked to your mood), and biological differences.
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Reference: MayoClinic
Image credit to ‘Karuka /Shutterstock’ for illustration
Reference: MayoClinic
Image credit to ‘Karuka /Shutterstock’ for illustration
