This is a cold of the mind, anyone may get

"Depression" has become the number one mental problem that plagues mankind. Some people describe it as a big black dog, watching the black dog go from time to time in life; some people suffer from it, but they are still fighting stubbornly; After a difficult climb, they finally reached the top of the mountain and met a brand new self... From a negative emotion to a disease, what kind of mental journey have they gone through? Let us stop, come to understand, listen, feel, walk into "depression" and restore more colors of this world.

Depression can also be divided into depressive episodes and recurrent depressive disorders in psychiatry. Such diseases, manic episodes, and bipolar disorder are all types of mood disorders.

Depression is a general term for diseases whose main clinical manifestations are depression. This group can be roughly divided into three clinical types: mild depressive episodes, moderate depression, and severe.

Due to the accelerated pace of life, increased work pressure, and increased childhood traumatic experiences, the prevalence of depression in my country is increasing year by year, and the burden of disease caused by it is a large proportion of mental diseases.

According to statistics, by 2020, depression has become the second largest source of disease burden after cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

The explanation for the burden of disease is:

Illness, disability and premature death put pressure on the economy and health of the entire society. The burden of disease is also called the burden of disease and injury, which includes the epidemiological burden of disease and injury and the economic burden of disease and injury.

In human terms, people who are ill cannot work or cannot do the work they had before the illness to make their due contribution to economic development.

At the same time, medication and other treatments after illness require the expenditure of the social medical security system, which not only loses the economic benefits of the patient’s society, but also increases the economic expenditure of the social security system, so it is called the burden of disease.

Regarding the popularity of depression, it might be a good idea to watch Andrew Solomon's TED speech. His show titled "Depression, Our Hidden Secret" was once the enlightenment of many people on the concept of depression.

In Andrew Solomon's speech, there were many sentences that were later familiar to the public.

"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality."

"There are three things that people easily confuse, depression, sadness, and sadness."

"Many times, what bothers them is not the disease itself, but the paranoia about some things."

Andrew Solomon once thought that he was the kind of person who was able to survive tenaciously after being sent to a concentration camp. He was extremely strong to survive a series of blows such as the death of his mother and the loss of love, and led a vibrant life.

Before being diagnosed with depression, many people thought the same as him.

The reality is that everyone is at risk of suffering from depression, even babies.

When a baby refuses to eat but does not have any physical and developmental diseases, you can start to pay attention to whether he has entered a state of depression.

In addition, those who have suffered a major traumatic event, such as the death of a loved one, are much more likely to get sick.

The trauma and suffering you have endured, the subconscious mind is helping you to firmly remember, this is a very sad point.

How to catch depression early

Depression is not far away from us. The typical manifestation of depression is three low symptoms: low mood, low willpower, and low interest. But the difficulty is that its early symptoms can easily be ignored and misjudged. A netizen on the Internet shared how she felt when she had depression. She described: "At that time, I felt as if my soul was wrapped in a wet, greasy plastic bag. When I was suffering from depression, the meaning of life. It is completely dispelled. The benefits of learning come too far away and are meaningless to oneself; socializing is to cope with the concerns of others, and oneself cannot get substantial help from it."

During the uncured period, she either regurgitated the past or worried about the future. But she still tried to save herself.

When the depression did not occur, she unswervingly carried out a self-help plan, getting up to run and reading every day, in order to stimulate her brain to secrete more dopamine. But at the onset of depression, she has no way to get a peak experience of the things in current life. She will be uncontrollably sad and feel that she is a walking dead. If she thinks about it carefully, she feels that her brain is like a lead. She is weak at any time, even with a glass of water, and she just wants to lie at home every day.

In fact, when you are always inexplicably depressed, sad, feeling dim about your future, not interested in everything around, even games, and experiencing memory decline, learning ability decline, etc. for more than 2 weeks, you need to be alert to the appearance of depression Up.

We need to take it seriously because it will amplify our frustration and helplessness in life, and make us feel that the world is gray.

Depression is related to emotions, but it is not a purely emotional problem, but a disease involving the brain and body. According to research in modern medicine, there is a significant difference between the brains of depression patients and ordinary people: MRI results show that compared with ordinary people, the amygdala is responsible for fear-related brain areas in the brains of depression patients. It becomes larger and more active; the hippocampus, a brain area related to memory and cognition, is significantly smaller in size. The changes in the amygdala will amplify the fear of depression patients, and the fear they feel in life will be stronger than that of ordinary people. The atrophy of the hippocampus usually corresponds to memory decline and cognitive decline. Without timely treatment, the longer the depression lasts, the smaller the size of the hippocampus of the brain.

In addition, the secretion of dopamine and serotonin will change in patients with depression. These factors can make depressed patients lose the ability to be happy, and also make them feel confused and feel that they can't do little things well, and deepen their sense of unworthiness in life.

Teenagers are a high-risk group of depression

Before, most of the news about depression we could see was related to adults. In fact, teenagers and children also suffer from depression. Compared with adults, adolescents suffer from depression at a higher rate. According to the latest version of the "2020 Depression Patient Group Survey Report", 72% of patients are diagnosed before the age of 25, which means that most people are diagnosed for the first time. Time is concentrated in middle school, university and work stage, that is, after the onset of puberty. 13 to 17 years old is a high incidence area of ​​depression. All high schools and institutions of higher learning should incorporate depression screening into the content of student health examinations, establish student mental health files, evaluate students’ mental health, and pay special attention to students with abnormal evaluation results.

In fact, the causes of depression are complex, and no one can explain it clearly in a few words. However, one thing is clear, the occurrence of depression is closely related to long-term chronic stress.

American clinical neuropsychologist William Stixruder puts forward a new view on the occurrence of depression in adolescents in his book "Self-Driving Growth": the new era of life weakens the pressure that children originally have Coping mechanism, which led to a larger outbreak of depression in adolescents.

For our brain, reason is not more noble than sensibility. When humans and all other mammals feel stressed, the amygdala in the brain further shuts down the prefrontal cortex responsible for rational thinking, allowing individuals to respond instinctively to threats. This physiological setting is to deal with accidental crises. It allows ancient humans to shut down their thinking when encountering beasts, try their best to escape, fight, or even pretend to die. This setting has increased the survival probability of ancient humans and has been continued to this day. Therefore, humans have not been able to continuously "turn on" the pressure response. When a person is under chronic stress for a long time, it will make the amygdala become larger and more sensitive. It will also cause constant tension in the prefrontal cortex. As a result, people will become more susceptible to stress. Especially when children experience high levels of stress and fatigue, they will become more and more likely to feel persistent anxiety, which causes the brain to be repeatedly affected by depression. Stixrud pointed out that being under chronic chronic stress is exactly what is happening to many children around the world. It is not a major crisis that creates this chronic pressure, but a constant sense of loss of control.

During 11 years of adolescent education experience, I have come into contact with many children. Most of them are very sensitive to the evaluation of their peers, and an unkind treatment may trouble them for several days. And the chronic pressure brought by the family and school caused by schoolwork may keep young people exposed to loss of control.

How to face depression

First of all, you can go to the hospital for professional help. Although you can find a variety of different depression test scales with a simple search on the Internet, lack of professional knowledge will prevent you from using the scales correctly to obtain accurate test results. Psychiatric or psychology doctors are more professional and authoritative, and they can give you more appropriate and appropriate help. Secondly, please tell yourself that even if you are really sick, it is not your fault.

If you are a patient with depression, your fatigue, extreme emotions, and performance fluctuations are not because you are lazy or lack of willpower, but are probably caused by illness. You don’t need to be ashamed of the disease, just like a cold. When you start to face it and adopt scientific treatments, it is possible to overcome depression. Then, please ask your family for help in time and be open and honest about the fact of your illness. Please believe that mom and dad are the most willing to support you in the world, and they will help you through the difficult time of depression.

How to treat a partner who is suffering from depression

No one wants depression. If your friend tells you that he/she seems to have the phenomenon mentioned in the article, please advise him/her to see a psychiatrist as soon as possible and provide help cautiously. If you don't have the ability to deal with negative emotions, your empathy and help will not only not relieve the other's emotions, but you may also put yourself at risk of depression.

Depression is a "cold of the mind" and also a long "blue melancholy". As a disease, it deserves our vigilance and attention. But in the face of patients with depression, it is best not to focus on "depression". When we pay too much attention to the three words "depression", it is like putting a new label on them, and we can no longer see him outside the label. We need to pay more attention to the "person" who is sick than the disease itself. We don’t need to treat him/her as fragile and give sympathetic care, but to go beyond the label of depression and see what this person really needs.

Australian illustrator Matthew Johnstone has been plagued by depression since he was in his early 20s. He described depression as a "big black dog". Facing the life flooded by the "big black dog", he once fought back and lay on the ground feebly, trying to save himself but was subdued by the "big black dog" and unable to move. The "Black Dog" once made him completely surrender, almost losing the courage and determination to survive. However, with a trace of the will to fight, he decided to seek professional help and guidance, face up to the depression, no longer resist alone, and gradually healed. After healed, he wrote a book called "I have a black dog called depression". This book has helped more people understand depression, and it has also made many people feel spiritually healed.

Yes, depression is like that "big black dog", but as long as we don't give up, it will be tamed one day. Just like the rising of the sun, there is hope at every corner of life. Depression is not a terminal illness. It is just a common disease. It needs to be seen by us, and it needs to be taken seriously. The only thing we don't need are our fears and misunderstandings.