Signs of Depression in Men

Although many studies found that depression is more common in women, but this doesn't mean you (if you are a man) can underestimate this disorder! It can attack anyone ‘young, adult, or elderly’ of ‘women & men’. It also can occur in any conditions of income level and even in any race. Some signs of depression in men can be different from the signs in women!

You might also like to know more about treatment options and causes of depression, before continuing!

Depression symptoms in men are more likely to include irritability (anger) and feeling discourage than helplessness, sadness, or hopelessness (some common depression symptoms in women). They are also more powerful than women to hide their feelings or their emotions. Furthermore, women with this disorder are more likely (more often) to attempt suicide than men with depression.

It is about 6 million of men in the United of States suffer from this disorder every year. The real number may be more or higher, because men with depression are relatively more difficult to be indentified than women with this disorder.

Reasons of why depression in men is more difficult to be identified!

There are some reasons, which may include:

1. Men are more likely to deny when having emotion problems, because there is opinion that men is stronger than women.
2. There is perception that by expressing emotion like sadness is often associated with a feminine trait. Therefore, most of men are more likely to hide their emotion and more often to talk about some physical symptoms.
3. There are more known depression signs in women than in men, which make health care professional or doctor become more difficult to make a diagnosis.
4. Furthermore, they often don’t recognize their depression symptoms -- and unlike women, most of them are not too interest to seek and find help for their depression.

Signs of depression in men

Unlike women with depression, men are less likely to have or show more typical symptoms of depression like sadness. And they are more likely to hide any feelings of depression symptoms.

As mentioned before, they may seem more aggressive or irritable instead of showing or expressing a depressed mood. They are more likely to act recklessly, abuse drugs, or drink too much of alcohol to express their depression symptoms.

Nevertheless, men with this disorder may also have a chance to experience some symptoms of depression in women, which may include:

1. Loss of interest to do many activities in their daily life.
2. Difficulties to get good concentration.
3. Problems in sleeping (insomnia or without unclearly reasons they often wake up in the middle of the night).
4. Loss or lack of energy (physical symptom).
5. And even thoughts about suicide and death.

Conditions that can put you at higher risk of depression

There are many possible factors that can increase your chance to have this disorder. Some of these factors may include:

1. Being at a too low or low income level.
2. Having a family member with depression or other mood disorders.
3. Having a personal history of mood disorders.
4. Having other health conditions, like stroke, HIV /AIDS, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer!
5. Etc.

What else you need to know about depression symptoms in men?

1. This disorder can affect the sexual desire and sexual performance of patient.
2. Untreated signs of depression in men will generate serious consequences, like thoughts of committing suicide. According to CDC, most of all individuals (about 70-80 %) in the U.S who commit suicide are not women, but men. But (as mentioned before) most of people who attempt suicide are women! This may be caused by the fact that men are more likely to choose more lethal methods to attempt suicide (like using a gun), and on the other hand women who are more likely to choose less lethal methods to attempt suicide (like choosing an overdose of pills).

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