Severe depression: causes and signs of the disorder

Nowadays, severe depression is becoming a very common disorder. It is observed in a fifth of the population of developed countries in Europe and North America. In addition, the number of people suffering from affective anxiety pathologies is constantly increasing.

Depression is characterized by a stable deterioration in mood and decreased vitality. It may be accompanied by another disorder - anhedonia. In this case, the person loses the ability to enjoy the successes achieved and cannot feel happy.

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What is depression and why is it dangerous?

In everyday life, depression is understood as short-term drops in mood associated with the season of the year or general fatigue. But clinical depression is a complex mental illness that is caused by disorders of the central nervous system and human psyche.

Regardless of theories about the origin of this condition, its main signs are always the same:

• reduced self-esteem, negative opinion about one’s surroundings and the future;
• slow thinking;
• low mood;
• decreased physical activity;
• loss of interest in favorite activities, work and life.

Often the very first negative consequence of a depressed state is alcohol or drug abuse. These stimulants temporarily restore good mood and return a person to his usual standard of living. But they are addictive and require constant increasing dosages.

A patient with a latent form of depression gradually drinks alcohol or becomes a drug addict.

Depressive disorders also affect physical health. Due to a lack of serotonin, changes occur in the nervous system that cause disturbances in sleep, appetite, the appearance of phantom pains, etc. The danger of depression that occurs in severe illnesses is that the patient’s condition worsens: his responsibility for following doctor’s orders decreases. But even for a healthy person, a depressed state leads to general destruction of life: he may lose his job, conflict with loved ones, and move away from friends and acquaintances.

If depression is left untreated, its consequences can be serious.

Symptoms

Symptoms of major depression depend on the severity and stage of the disease.

At the onset of the disease, the patient’s behavior and lifestyle remain normal, only his way of thinking and feeling changes.

As the disease progresses and the condition becomes more severe, pronounced symptoms of the disease appear.

Are common

1. Apathy - a violation of the emotional-volitional sphere is observed in all patients with deep depression. In this state, the patient does not want anything, he becomes uninitiative, little talkative, too calm, and ceases to be interested in those around him. Sometimes apathy with depression does not clearly manifest itself, the patient continues to lead a normal lifestyle, performs daily duties, but at the same time experiences a complete loss of interests, becomes emotionally cold, sad and “lazy”. The development of abulia is also characteristic - a complete lack of desires and motivation to act, as well as the inability to make volitional decisions. The first sign of emotional-volitional disorders is a deterioration in the patient’s mood, his behavior and appearance change - he stops monitoring the condition of his clothes, cleanliness and tidiness, does not communicate with others, spending most of his time alone.
2. Akinesia - a slowdown in motor activity in severe cases of depression can be replaced by a sharp decrease in muscle tone and limited range of movements. At the beginning of the disease, a person experiences constant weakness, reluctance to move, his performance capacity decreases, muscle activity decreases, the need to move, to do something causes irritation, as the disease progresses, muscle weakness increases, movements slow down more and more, the patient tries to move as little as possible and may simply refuse to leave your home or your room.
3. Changing your thinking is one of the biggest dangers of major depression. Moreover, these changes occur unnoticed, both for others and for the patient himself, anxiety and irritability increase, fears, self-doubt, a negative attitude towards events occurring in life and the inability to cope with the influx of negative emotions appear. Professional skills and memory deteriorate, thinking slows down, the patient has difficulty concentrating or performing any complex tasks or highly intellectual work.
4. Physical manifestations - in addition to mental changes, depression causes weakness, headaches and muscle pain, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, weight loss or sudden gain, pain in the heart, digestive organs, or pain without a specific localization.

Psychotic symptoms

In addition to the classic manifestations of depression, with major depressive disorder the development of psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and depressive stupor is possible.

With deep depression, patients hear accusing or condemning voices, smell unpleasant odors, and may see dead people, monsters, insects, snakes or other unpleasant creatures.

Typically, depression is dominated by ideas of one’s own guilt, insignificance, delusions of persecution, impoverishment, and jealousy. Unfortunately, patients often hide the psychotic symptoms of the disease, and their behavior is misinterpreted by others who do not pay attention to the person’s “eccentricities” and “bad character.”

Without medication and the help of a specialist, it is impossible to get rid of the psychotic symptoms of depression on your own. Without treatment, the patient's condition worsens, he may attempt suicide or harm himself.

Treatment

It is almost impossible to get out of such a serious condition - prolonged depression - on your own. For treatment, it is necessary to restore normal functioning of the nervous system and increase the level of neurotransmitters in the blood.

Drug therapy helps relieve psychotic and general symptoms of depression, but without appropriate psychotherapeutic treatment and lifestyle changes, it is impossible for the patient to achieve complete recovery. Only complex therapy helps to get rid of all clinical manifestations of the disease and prevent their occurrence in the future.

If you suspect this form of depression in yourself or someone close to you and do not know what to do, you should seek advice from a specialist who can assess the severity of the patient’s condition and recommend treatment.

Sometimes you can even get out of prolonged depression on your own by changing your lifestyle, getting rid of a traumatic situation, devoting more time to sleep, rest, physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. Psychotherapy helps solve many problems, but in cases of severe mental disorder, most often such methods are not enough and treatment begins with normalizing the mental state with the help of drug therapy.

Consequences of depression

Most often, the problem lies in untimely treatment: if depression is not treated, it becomes chronic and leads to the development of complications. But a person in a state of disorder or after severe stress becomes so immersed in himself that it is difficult for him to independently determine the onset of the development of clinical symptoms.

Signs of the disease may be detected by loved ones, but they are put off by the unusual aggressiveness, irritability, or complete detachment and indifference of the suffering family member.

Social consequences

Changes in social life are associated with disturbances in the patient’s psychological state. With general depression, the patient develops the following behavioral and mental symptoms:

• problems in communication at home and at work (indifference or irritability, anger, desire to be alone, etc.);
• decreased sex drive;
• loss of ability to solve emerging problems: helplessness develops in difficult situations;
• predominance of negative emotions;
• the emergence of fears (phobias): communication, confined spaces, etc.

The listed social problems are accumulating and getting worse. The consequence is a reluctance to live and suicidal tendencies arising due to their negative impact on the quality of life.

Health effects of depression

With long-term depression, the consequences affect not only the emotional and social spheres of a person’s life. The primary consequences, which manifest themselves in the physiological sphere, affect the brain, autonomic nervous system, blood vessels and heart. With the development of severe depression, the entire body begins to suffer, since improper functioning of the nervous system provokes disorders in the endocrine and immune systems (for example, diabetes mellitus). In addition to this, other diseases become possible:

1. The functioning of all organs depends on the condition of the endocrine glands and the correct entry into the blood of the hormones they secrete. When the activity of the pancreas and thyroid glands is impaired, a person’s condition sometimes becomes so severe that doctors have to save him from death. The release of large amounts of hormones into the blood is a common cause of high blood pressure, panic attacks, and the cardiovascular system also begins to suffer.
2. Disturbances in the functioning of the immune system not only lead to the unhindered penetration of pathogens of various infections into the body. There are a number of diseases that are called autoimmune (systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatism, etc.). During these processes, protective cells begin to destroy the tissues of their own body.

Even with a slight degree of damage to the nervous system due to depressive disorders, a sick person may experience the following conditions:

• insomnia;
• chronic fatigue;
• decreased ability to tolerate physical pain;
• deterioration of the condition of the skin, hair and nails, leading to loss of attractiveness.

Physical impairments lead to a decrease in living standards.

The situation is also dangerous because poor general health and social problems are fully realized by the person. He suffers from the loss of a normal way of life, from changes in appearance and at the same time from his own inability to change this condition. Against the background of new stress, the course of depressive disorder and its consequences become even more severe.

Literature

1. Craig L Hyde, Michael W Nagle, Chao Tian, ​​Xing Chen, Sara A Paciga, Jens R Wendland, et al.. (2016). Identification of 15 genetic loci associated with risk of major depression in individuals of European descent. Nat Genet
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   48 , 1031-1036;
2. Novel study method identifies 15 genomic regions associated with depression. (2016). Science Daily;
3. Code of Life: Reading does not mean understanding;
4. Genetics of psoriasis: immunity, skin barrier function and GWAS;
5. GWAS and psychogenetics: consortia in search of associations;
6. The mysterious genetics of the “mysterious skin disease” - vitiligo;
7. Wei Cheng, Edmund T. Rolls, Jiang Qiu, Wei Liu, Yanqing Tang, Chu-Chung Huang, et al.. (2016). Medial reward and lateral non-reward orbitofrontal cortex circuits change in opposite directions in depression. Brain
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   139 , 3296-3309;
8. Depression's physical source discovered. (2016). Science Daily...

Prevention

The main preventive measure that can save a person from developing the consequences of a depressed state is timely treatment of depression. In order to promptly recognize the development of a severe mental disorder, relatives must be attentive to the condition of the family member. If a loved one has signs of incipient depression, or there were some prerequisites for its occurrence (illness, stress, personal tragedy, etc.), then it is advisable to persuade him to visit a psychotherapist or psychiatrist.

The doctor's prescriptions must be followed, and medications must be taken in the order specified by him. But even this is advisable to be controlled by someone close to you. In a state of depression, a person is often inclined to be irresponsible about his health.

You cannot treat depression on your own. Most folk remedies are effective only as symptomatic therapy. They can reduce the symptoms of insomnia, help lift your mood during the day, and increase performance, but they are unable to eliminate the cause of these symptoms.

To adequately treat depression and prevent its severe consequences, it is necessary to take medications and psychotherapy methods, which are prescribed only by a specialist.

Symptoms of the disease

It is very important to identify the initial signs of severe depression. The main difficulty is that at first few people seriously pay attention to them. The first symptoms of depression are:

• Deterioration of a person’s emotional well-being and mood. This process occurs gradually over a long period of time: first, a person feels tired and overwhelmed in the late afternoon, regardless of how busy the day is. Sudden mood swings and outbursts of emotions may occur, and anxiety may appear. During this period, self-esteem also decreases, a person finds himself in the grip of self-criticism, feelings of guilt and self-abasement.
• Physiological changes and disorders. They usually occur simultaneously with a drop in emotional tone and manifest themselves in unpleasant muscle sensations, drowsiness, fatigue, decreased or loss of sexual desire, deterioration of appetite, as well as imbalance in the gastrointestinal tract (for example, the appearance of frequent constipation or chronic diarrhea and abdominal discomfort). In general, the symptoms of this group may resemble signs of viral diseases such as acute respiratory viral infections or mild food poisoning.
• Changing thinking and attitude towards the world. The most alarming point, since it is this that begins to have a serious impact on a person’s behavior, which can be fraught not only with withdrawal and desocialization, but also with a suicide attempt. The main idea that appears in the patient’s head is the futility of any efforts and pessimism; the imaginary “own uselessness” leads to negativism in relation to the world around us. Loss of interest in surrounding events, people, in the absence of mental activity; lethargy and indifference to everything appear.
• Deformation of behavior. The patient becomes uninitiative, he ceases to participate in social and family life, more often secludes himself and tries to isolate himself from the people around him. Often the patient gives up a previously favorite pastime (for example, going to a sports club, participating in a music group, etc.) in favor of voluntary solitude. Contacts with people are reduced to a minimum; relatives may note that the person has become uncommunicative.

Loss of interest in everything inevitably entails laziness and frustration, which often manifest themselves in “unnecessary” actions: the patient can carefully draw dots on the paper, or tear the paper itself and crumple it into balls with his fingers. Further symptoms develop depending on the form of depression. Curing them will be several times more difficult than at the beginning of the disease.

How to relieve depression?

Depression drains a person emotionally and physically, depriving him of energy. This makes it incredibly difficult to fight, especially alone. To alleviate depression, willpower alone is not enough. The problem needs to be solved comprehensively.

Communicate with people

Depression feeds on loneliness, so the first thing to do is meet with friends and relatives. Even a simple conversation will help you “emerge” from black melancholy, provided that you are not lectured or criticized. Choose someone who will simply listen and offer encouragement.

Move more

When you're depressed, even the thought of exercise is terrifying. Let it be a normal walk at first. Or dance at home to your favorite music. But remember: exercise acts as an antidepressant. Therefore, it makes sense to consciously increase the load and exercise regularly.

Eat right

Your diet directly affects your well-being. When you are depressed, you need to eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids and B vitamins.

But exclude coffee, alcohol, trans fats, simple carbohydrates, all products with chemical taste and smell enhancers, preservatives, and hormones from your menu. They provoke depression and loss of energy.

Important condition: do not skip meals. Even if there is no appetite, fasting is not good for the body - it causes irritability and fatigue.

Support those who are worse off

Your problems are always closer and more important. But even if you feel bad, there will be people who feel even worse. These are disabled people, seriously ill people, orphans, large low-income families. Find a way to support them, listen to them, do something nice - this will energize you.

Add some light

Sunlight helps cope with depression. It stimulates the production of serotonin, a hormone that improves mood.

It is important to have as much natural light in your room as possible. Also, take plenty of walks outside during the day, even if you don’t feel like going outside.

Get busy

Work helps to take your mind off dark thoughts. At first, it’s difficult to force yourself to delve into things—your head works much worse when you’re depressed, and it’s difficult to concentrate. And communicating with people is a burden. At this moment, simple mechanical work - for example, cleaning - will help to distract you. You will gradually get involved in the process and be able to solve more complex problems. The hardest thing is to take the first step.

Sometimes it is enough to communicate with loved ones, change the situation, environment or work, and the symptoms of depression go away. But if you have taken all self-help measures and things do not get better, contact your doctor.

Wrong remedies for subdepression

1. Medicines. Pharmacy counters are replete with all kinds of drugs for depression, dietary supplements, sleeping pills, sedatives, sedatives, sold without a doctor’s prescription. All of them may be capable of bringing a certain effect, but their selection should definitely be done by a doctor. Medicines only “suppress” the problem; stopping them can return the previous state.
2. Alcohol is the same psychotropic drug, which, when taken, “dulls” the brain. The drinker stops feeling problems for some time. Sobering up returns everything to its place. Attempts to “fill out” subdepression can end in more serious problems, for example, alcoholism, loss of family, job, etc.
3. Sex does not have side effects like the first two remedies. However, in some cases, subdepression is caused by problems in the intimate sphere. This origin of the disorder is not always realized. The result is a new blow to the sore point, and sex provokes a worsening of the disorder. However, if you have complete understanding and trust with your partner, then sex will become a lifeline.