5 Warning Signs You May Be Slipping Into Major Depression: Managing Depression in Edmonton
Hi there. I’m Dr. Kelly Clark, and today I’d like to talk about depression. Depression is not something most of us want to talk about, but I wanted to basically outline ideas around how do I know if I’m depressed?
There’s folks out there wondering if they’re depressed and what features or factors would say that that one’s depressed. I know in the assessments I’ve done, there’s often times where the person that I’m doing the assessment on is surprised they have depression. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about depression and what that looks like.
Probably many of you would realize that depression has multiple factors to it. There is a high disposition towards genetic factors contributing to depression. That’s not the only reason that a person might develop depression, because you could actually have genetic dispositions towards depression and actually never develop it. The interaction with the environment is a big factor as well.
If you had, say, a disposition towards depressive features and you had just a really healthy home environment, very loving and safe family, very supportive and understanding, helped you move and manage emotions well, very accepting, that could really do well to keep depressive features from ever developing. Whereas the opposite is also true. If you didn’t have strong indicators of depression genetically and yet were raised in a very troubled home, uncaring, even abusive home, then that certainly can contribute to a person’s self-worth belief in themselves and negative dispositions towards their future, which we’ll get into a little bit more.
What Depression Feels Like in Edmonton
What does depression look like for a person? There certainly can be genetic factors, environment, lifestyle, or life events. Certainly when somebody would have financial issues or adjustment problems or difficulties managing things in their life or had a significant loss, these can bring on depressive features. There’s a whole host of things that can contribute to depression, including neurochemical reasons. Sometimes people are having an underproduction of a neurochemical responsible or helpful to keep a more happy or stable state.
All of these things together can factor into a depressive disposition. What I wanted to talk about is more than subjective sense, how do I know I’m depressed? What does it feel like? What are the thoughts? What are some of those things?
I think we can boil depression down to three things. When I’m talking with people, I’m going to ask around these three lines, the features or questions about what would be going on in their life.
For example, the three areas I want to talk about is one is people that are struggling with depressant features often they boil it down to that my life is a mess. There’s nothing good in my life. There’s nothing worth living, nothing worth looking forward to in my life. My life is like a mess.
The other factor that would be hovered around often with people struggling with depression is that I’m a mess. There’s nothing good about me. I’m not attractive. I’m not intelligent. I’m not funny. People don’t like me. Lots of these kinds of negative beliefs. Often people with depression struggle with negative beliefs about themselves.
Another factor or another general category would be future orientation. These people are people that my future has no hope for. My future is a mess. I have nothing to look forward to. I don’t see myself being a success in the future. My future looks very negative.
Those are just some key three things that I will generally talk to people about. Even sitting there, if you’re listening to this, I would ask yourself, how do you think and view those three areas? How do you view yourself? How do you view your current life? How do you view your future? If it’s very negative and there’s not a lot of positives there, those are some factors we would want to consider.
Changes in Thinking and Behavior
I think that depression feels depressive, too. It feels heavy. People will describe feeling heavy, numb, flat, muted. There’s a quality called anhedonia. There’s a lack of ability to enjoy pleasurable things. Things that formally would have enjoyed are no longer enjoyable.
People are depressed, don’t have a lot of energy. They end up staying at home quite a bit, isolating themselves, not getting out, not being busy with their friends. This will be a common thing. I’ll ask people, “Do you have friends?” “Yes.” “Are you getting out to see them?” “No, but I do talk to them online.” That would still count as, even though it’s better than not having any friends, that would count as still being fairly isolated, not getting out.
People that are depressed feel it in their bodies. It feels different subjectively, feels heavy, numb. There’s an apathy. They don’t find joy in things, a joylessness, a heaviness. It can feel in their body.
There’s something I’ll often say. Somebody will be, “Yeah, I’m doing fine in my life,” and meanwhile their body is telling them something very to the contrary. I’ll say that the mind can lie, but the body cannot. Really trust that body sensation. If you’re feeling heavy, numb, apathetic, amotivational, joyless, there’s barely ever where you’re swinging more to the positive side of emotions, happiness, joy, then those are considerable symptoms to pay attention to.
Another thing is changes in thinking. People who become more depressed become more negative, hopeless. As I said about the future, they don’t see a lot of future orientation. They see a lot of negative things in life. A common thing would be, “Did you hear the news today?” And it’s only going to get worse. These kinds of statements.
They’re very oriented on seeing the negative qualities in life. They’re attracted to the negative news and constantly will be oriented and bring this up in conversation. Very negative, self-critical, critical of others.
Difficulty concentrating is one. Poor concentration, poor memory, difficulties making decisions, struggling with organization. Forgetfulness, brain fog.
There’s a lot of thinking that I’m not good enough. Any kind of setback very quickly goes to negative thoughts about constantly doing this. This is the same old story it’s been. I always end up failing. This constant orientation around failure and then why bother again, that amotivational, why should I try again, and giving up easily.
When to Seek Help for Depression in Edmonton
There can be physical changes we would notice in the body as far as sensory feeling and numbness, but there can also be changes in the body like losing weight or gaining too much weight. Sleeping too much. Constant fatigue, not feeling like yourself, and that something’s very different with you. Heaviness, a physical kind of heavy feeling in your body that doesn’t seem to go down, slowing you down.
Increased aches and pains. A lot of somatic complaints will happen by people who feel depressed. They will also have a tendency towards not taking care of hygiene. We’ll see this in children and adolescence in particular. Difficulties with taking care of hygiene and also a lack of interest in taking care of things like their room, clothes all over the place.
People who have a healthier self-esteem feel more on the positive side of emotions. They will decorate and be creative with their room. Adolescents that have no interest in taking care of themselves or their room or their environment or their schooling, these are features that can also be related to depression.
Changes in behavior are also important. Withdrawing, pulling away from people, this isolative insular type of living, procrastination, putting things off, avoiding responsibilities, crying readily.
People would also struggle with feelings of worthlessness, not feeling good enough, excessive guilt, feeling like a burden, feeling empty inside, this hollowness.
When you have major depression, that would be an unrelenting period of two weeks where you’re feeling down, discouraged, feelings of worthlessness, not good enough, low, depressed and sad, unremittingly. There’s no break from it over a two week period.
That would be what we would call major depressive disorder. The duration is very important. If you can’t get out of bed, can’t go to school, can’t go to work, then you may want to consult with your physician and chat about psychopharmacological intervention.
If you’re feeling more than a two week period of depression, we don’t want to just leave that as it is. We want to try to take responsibility and go see your physician or a psychologist, psychiatrist, someone, or even a friend where you can start to make some movement from being stuck in that depressive state.
Re-engagement is important. Taking care of yourself, hygiene, getting out, working out, hobbies, getting involved with people, becoming less isolated.
If you get to that level of a depressive state, especially if it’s a major depressive disorder, you would want to seek professional care. Consult with your physician, reach out to friends, family, psychologist, psychiatrist. These are things I would encourage you to do.