Hello everyone, this is me today, trying to share with you my experience about depression and ways to overcome it, mainly to those facing it silently and can’t really share it to anyone. I just got the right way I could do it and it was sharing it with others through my article. Here it goes! First of all, let me try talking about what really anxiety and depression is.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. It is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences from time to time. However, excessive anxiety or persistent feelings of anxiousness and fear that interfere with daily activities and relationships may indicate an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders can be treated with therapy, medication, or a combination of both.
What is depression?
Depression is a mental health disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness or loss of interest in activities that you once enjoyed. It can affect how you feel, think, and behave, and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. Depression can be triggered by a combination of factors including genetics, environmental, life events or chemical imbalances in the brain. Common symptoms of depression include feelings of sadness or hopelessness, tiredness or fatigue, oversleeping, loss of appetite or overeating, problems with memory, loss of interest in activities, thoughts of self-harm and suicide.
Depression is a common mental disorder in the world, affecting more than 300 million people worldwide. According to research, a greater percentage of people are separately suffering from depression and anxiety.
Causes of Anxiety and Depression
Some causes of anxiety include: persistent worry and fear about everyday situations, physical and mental health problems, drugs and medication. Risk factors of anxiety may include rapid heart rate, palpitations, and chest pain. You may also be at an increased risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.
Depression can be caused by stressful events, family history, giving birth to a child and dies, loneliness, alcohol and drugs and illness.Anxiety and depression have some misconceptions which include: anxiety isn’t a real disorder, medication is the only treatment for anxiety disorders, therapy for anxiety should be focused on the root cause of the disorder, less stress will cure anxiety, and anxiety attacks can cause you to faint and among others.
Anxiety can have very many disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, agoraphobia, and separation anxiety, medical induced disorder.
But anxiety can be overcome through doing the following: take a time out, eat well balanced meals, limit alcohol consumption, get enough sleep, exercise daily to maintain your health, take deep breaths, seeking professional help, therapy and medication options.
Also the family members can play an important role in your healing process, if someone is in treatment for depression, help them remember to take prescriptions and keep appointments. Be willing to listen, let them know that you want to learn how they feel. When they want to talk, listen carefully.
Despite achievements in higher education and economic development of population over the past time, the trend of these disorders has alarmingly been increased. Considering the findings, it is necessary to develop evidence-based and appropriate community-based primary and secondary mental health prevention programs. These can be of great help to the depressed.
Some people mostly the teenagers I’ve interacted with suffer depression because of love, the heartbreaks they experience from their loved ones which really puts them into some dangerous states of their lives.
Another thing I would talk about is depression is a gradual mental disease, by this I mean it slowly grows from one stage to another and if someone has not been helped earlier, one may lose some of their functioning properties. When a mother loses her baby at birth, for this, let me narrate you something.
I have my auntie and is a mother of two children, her first born is a son aged 8years and the second born is a girl aged 3years. These people, my auntie and the husband had issues in getting a baby, they tried as much as they could have bit failed to get their first born. My auntie though their marriage wouldn’t last because they didn’t have a baby and the baby was responsible for the bond between the two. She tried everything she could but failed, she loved the guy! She then thought of sleeping with another man to have a baby without letting the man know about it because he wouldn’t accept.
Thinking that the man had issues with giving birth. The reason for her doing this was because she was really depressed! But unfortunately God provided her with a baby. When she was giving birth to her second birth, she had a miscounted and that made her think of everything she had gone through, this made her depressed again. But as time went on, she learnt and was able to coupe up with the depression. It is characterized by persistent sadness and a lack of interest or pleasure in previously rewarding or enjoyable activities. It can also disturb sleep and appetite. Tiredness and poor concentration are common.
In conclusion, all I can say is that depression can be overcome, we just have to find all ways and don’t let anything let you down because it’s not the end of it all. Depression has a high rate of morbidity and mortality when left untreated. Most patients suffering from depression do not complain of feeling depressed, but rather anhedonia or vague unexplained symptoms. All physicians should remain alert to effectively screen for depression in their patients.
