Down in the Dumps Depression is a serious medical illness. Unlike normal emotional experiences of sadness, loss, or passing mood states, depression is persistent and can significantly interfere with an individual's thoughts, behavior, mood, activity, and physical health. Among all medical illnesses, depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States and many other developed countries. Individuals who deals with depression can be placed into these categories: depressed individuals, SIB (Self Injurious Behaviors) patients and suicide committers. First, there are depressed individuals who have difficulty in thinking, concentrating, and remembering things. Some of these individuals have mood swings. Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, hopelessn ...view middle of the document...
A person may injure him or herself as an attempt to stop or avoid some threatened, real, external or internal pain. This process is also an attempt to manage traumatic stress. It is a way of releasing or getting the pain out. It is important to note that people inflict self-injury for physical or emotional reasons. It is not, per se, a voluntary act. It may be an unconscious way of dealing with a sense of self-loathing before one reaches a point of suicide.Although there is a strong link between suicide and depression, suicide should only be considered if the individual indicates intent to die. A common myth is that asking individuals if they are contemplating suicide affects their likelihood to attempt or complete suicide. Individuals who are more likely to commit suicide have a very low self-esteem, and they express feeling that they are not useful in anyway. They have no feelings for grief or loss, they look sad almost all the time, and at most they look flat. They talk about death a lot and have recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. They get lack of interest in or pleasure from activities that they once enjoyed and also withdraw with their families and friends.In conclusion, it is evident to see that there is not simply one type of depression; in fact, the traits that describe depressed individuals, SIB patients, and suicide committers vary very drastically. I concur with the fact that depression is not simply related to emotional behavior but in fact is a combination of biological, psychological and social reasoning. Depression is a prominent problem in our stressful society, and I believe there should be more research on this topic so that there can be a better approach and treatment to eradicate such behavior from our society and help those suffering from this ailment.
