2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Every time I come across information about depression on the Internet, the picture is drawn something like this: “with mild depression, you need to take a contrast shower, watch a comedy and eat ice cream, but if you don't eat / don't sleep and just want to die, run to the doctor !.
However, the whole problem lies in the fact that depression does not have mild or severe forms, and in civilized countries it is generally considered a "disease" (not to say a mental disorder). Depression can be confused with chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothymia, and subdepression, but depression itself is either present or not. And if it is, then most likely "movies and snacks" will not help here. The symptoms that we feel in the form of memory / attention loss, headaches and other somatic pains, sleep disorders, appetite, etc., do not arise due to bad mood or accumulated problems. It arises as a result of disorders of cerebral blood flow and metabolism, up to cellular atrophy. In simple words, some parts of the brain do not receive oxygen and nutrients, which is why the brain does not work correctly, and some cells generally die from this hunger (for reference, about 70% of elderly people suffering from dementia previously suffered from depression).
Depending on what we eat, whether we use alcohol and any other "chemistry" (including an infinite variety of drugs, stimulants, etc.), how we react to stress and behave during and after conflict - the chemical composition of our brain is constantly changing. It is the imbalance and advantage of some hormones over others that “take away” from us a sense of joy and faith in positive changes, increasing the subjective feeling of our low importance or worthlessness.
Why is it important?
Because on the one hand, it is necessary to learn that as a psychosomatic complex, the problem of depression cannot be solved one-sidedly. Depending on our constitutional type, adherence to a diet / healthy lifestyle and a properly selected medication / phyto correction are important here. And the main importance is acquired by teaching the skills of constructive resolution of conflict situations and working out the consequences of psychological stress, also according to our psychological type. Since the tendency to "mental gum" is one of the most "difficult to tame" and "hormone-confusing" problems of people with a depressed disposition).
On the other hand, it is important to know that if we have not "stirred up" the necessary parts of the brain and have not learned to maintain a hormonal balance that is more or less adequate for our body, this does not pass without a trace. Lacking essential nutrients in certain areas, our brain does not work correctly. Poor memory / attention, thinking disorders, etc., do not make it possible to adequately perceive and process information, everything that happens to us in everyday life. That in itself causes new stresses, conflicts, experiences and hormonal "wars". Incorrectly produced hormones that do not have the ability to be adequately excreted accumulate and disrupt the work of certain organs. This manifests itself in psychosomatic disorders and psychosomatosis proper.
On the third hand, when I write about "certain parts of the brain", you need to know that certain symptoms indicate metabolic disorders in different parts of the brain, respectively, correction and treatment may differ in different cases. After all, we are accustomed to the fact that depression is synonymous with apathy and indifference, and with some depressions, a person, on the contrary, experiences excitement and shows irrepressible hyperactivity. It happens that a person leads a bright, eventful lifestyle, and masked depression somatizes and makes him unsuccessfully go from one doctor's office to another, because nothing seems to be diagnosed, but the person feels that he is "falling apart". And in appointments, it happens that one needs to go in for sports and take a contrast shower, while the other categorically sleep, gain strength and exclude sweets from the diet). That is why many lovers of "treatment" according to reviews on the Internet already know that those drugs that were effective for others may not be suitable for them at all, despite the fact that they "also have depression."
In this post, I will simply describe the variety of the most commonly diagnosed depressive disorders so that I know and understand how many faces depression is. In the future, I will try to pay attention to the most important episodes, each separately.
So, an overview psychotherapeutic classification is as follows:
1. Melancholic depression
Here, in a mild form, people often complain that they have ceased to enjoy some events that aroused interest and joy before. By themselves, they are tearful, grumpy, irritable and touchy. Their mental activity slows down, memory deteriorates, concentration of attention decreases. Difficulties arise with planning, the future seems pointless, and the negative is more often recalled from the past. Self-esteem decreases. The condition becomes more complicated when a person begins to feel melancholy, up to and including “deathly melancholy”. In this case, the condition is not similar to mourning (but can develop with pathological grief). Almost always, such people feel melancholy in their body, in the chest and abdomen, and express it with the phrases “melancholy presses,” “soul hurts,” “tears the soul apart from melancholy,” etc. A severe degree can be considered a situation when delirium appears.
2. Anesthetic depression
It also happens that melancholic depression changes, people complain of complete spiritual emptiness, indifference, the disappearance of all feelings, even to loved ones. No love, no fear - nothing. In milder cases, they describe their condition as "muffledness", "numbness", they say that they have become petrified, become "dull" and ruthless. Such people are inactive, silent, in more difficult episodes they sit for a long time or lie in the same position, respond in a whisper, monosyllabic, with pauses. In difficult cases, they may even lose the sensation of the body or its individual parts, fall into a stupor.
3. Apato-adynamic depression
Unlike anesthetic depression, people here are indifferent to their loss of feelings. A person sees, hears, understands everything, but remains indifferent to his condition, like a “living corpse”. In addition to lethargy, apathy and indifference, such people have a decrease in muscle tone, impaired gait, handwriting, bend the spine and drop shoulders (the so-called mournful pose), their eyes are empty. In this case, there are no delusions and hallucinations, the condition worsens in the evening, sometimes a person is vaguely aware of the abnormality of his condition. Mild forms of apathetic depression include postpartum, protective, winter depression, and chronic fatigue.
4. Postpartum depression
Usually, against the background of hormonal changes, it appears 3-5 days after childbirth, lasts a day and does not require special interventions. However, sometimes, a feeling of loss of energy leads to a loss of feelings (the closest is postpartum depression to apathetic depression), tearfulness appears "just like that", and anger may appear, especially with a child. Over time (from 3 months to 1, 5 years), there is an aversion to sex, a feeling of abandonment and meaninglessness of existence. Serious deterioration is considered a lack of good feelings for the child, causing physical harm to the baby (shaking, spanking), yelling at the baby, mother's crying (constant tearfulness), insomnia and any condition that threatens the life and health of the mother or child. Postpartum depression can turn into postpartum psychosis and add other psychosomatic disorders. Read more about it here Postpartum psychosomatics. Blues, depression, or psychosis
5. Winter depression (photodependent depression)
This is the very "autumn blues", which is associated with the fact that the days are getting shorter and the nights are longer. Despite the playful name, autumn blues is a complex form of depression. The reason for it lies in the short daylight hours, during which the brain does not have time to release a certain amount of melatonin, a hormone that regulates the body's biorhythms and affects emotions. It manifests itself in a bad mood, a feeling of depression, apathy, a constant feeling of fatigue, decreased performance, drowsiness, increased appetite with increasing weight. Somatically, people complain of pain in the neck, back, abdomen, chest, pain in the arms and legs, and headaches. These signs appear regularly from mid-autumn, intensify by January and completely disappear closer to the month of May.
6. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
The depletion of the mechanisms of toning and energy production in CFS is the same as in all types of apathetic depressions. People feel a loss of vitality right in the morning, sometimes this is accompanied by dizziness, nausea, weakening of memory and attention.
7. Asthenic depression
This is increased fatigue, irritability, weakness, decreased endurance to normal stress and exhaustion. With a bad mood or slight discomfort in the body, such people may think that they are seriously ill.
8. Dysphoric depression
It combines a low mood with sullenness, irritability, often turning into anger with abuse, threats and aggressive actions. Such people often do not find a place for themselves, experience an irresistible need for movement, become intrusive, annoying, picky, impatient, and unhappy with everything. In severe cases, there is a craving for senseless destruction of objects.
9. Agitated depression
With this type of depression, anxious and melancholy mood is combined with speech and motor excitement. People say a lot, briefly and categorically, that they seem to have a presentiment of something bad, some kind of misfortune, a catastrophe that is about to happen to them or to their loved ones. Restless, constantly walking, cannot find a place for themselves, wring their fingers. Suddenly, an irresistible attraction to self-torture may appear, etc. This is a difficult condition, often a consequence of melancholic depression, which is why it is so important at the first stage in the work of a psychologist to timely and adequately assess the client's condition and his competence.
10. Hypochondriacal depression
Decreased mood, tearfulness, anxiety, discontent, impaired appetite, sleep, menstrual cycle, all this is combined with the fact that, in general, a healthy person is convinced that he is sick with some serious illness. He seeks out unpleasant sensations in the body and interprets them as a symptom. Over time, such sensations can be somatized (when a person "really" feels pain or a problem in a healthy organ, but doctors do not diagnose anything).
11. Hypotimia and subdepression
Low mood, weakness, lethargy, laziness, powerlessness, sadness, decreased self-esteem, exaggeration of real difficulties, reproaching oneself for cowardice, the inability to "pull myself together" …
How often, when fatigue builds up and there is a feeling that everything has piled on us at once, we catch a light virus and, getting sick, we get additional time and resources to solve tasks, or to cancel them. This is how subdepression arises when problems accumulate so much that we do not have time to analyze and work through all of them. It is experienced as a feeling of disappointment, sadness, sometimes associated with feelings of guilt and fear. People less inclined to introspection, relieve this short-term decline in mood with alcohol, sports, sex, sweets or even "mild sedatives" such as valerian, etc.
12. Depression with anxiety disorders
Depressed mood with elements of hypochondria, phobias, panic attacks, masked depression, etc. Anxiety depressions are especially complex and by origin are:
- Endogenous - develop for no apparent reason, start suddenly, in the morning, are accompanied by a strong feeling of anxiety, lack of hope for a better future and often lead to suicide.
- Reactive - as a reaction to severe stress (dismissal, news of illness or death of a loved one, etc.)
- Neurotic - when the gap between the ideal I and the real I is strongly experienced
- Organic - arise as a result of morphological changes in the brain, tumors and as a result of intoxication
13. Masked depression (psychosomatic disorders) and
14. Somatized depression (psychosomatic diseases)
The reasons for its origin are described in different ways, the essence boils down to the fact that unreleased "negative" energy (often and long-suppressed negative emotions - hormonal imbalance) is looking for a way out through the body. Objectively, doctors do not find any significant changes in the human body. Subjectively, such people really hurt (stomach, heart, head, etc.). Depression and obesity are also considered separately.
15. Secondary depression in somatic disorders
More correlated with apathetic depression. It occurs when a person is ill for a long time, is on “lifelong treatment,” with disability or as a result of unsuccessful treatment.
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