Depression – Is My Child Depressed?

March 17, 2011 at 7:52 am | Posted in grief/loss, health, self development/motivation | Leave a comment
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This might come as a surprise to some of you but children can experience depression as well as adolescents and adults. For some children it is not ‘just a phase they are going through’ and these parents need to know what to look for.

Is my Child depressed?

History

It is interesting to note that there wasn’t even an official diagnosis for childhood depression until 1980, even though there was significant research into depression in children in the 1950s. A young pediatrician called Leon Cytryn was researching the frequency of sadness and withdrawal he observed in boys admitted to hospital for surgery. He discovered that almost half of them had symptoms, which would have been associated with adult depression.

Sadness versus depression

To clarify here it is important to note that sadness can be a healthy and normal response when the child is upset, for example when their grandfather has just died or their pet has run away. If this sadness however is observed as a continuous state in the child’s day-to-day experience then we need to look at the potential for childhood depression.

Seeing the signs Continue Reading Depression – Is My Child Depressed?…

Depression – Questions And Answers

February 2, 2011 at 3:22 pm | Posted in health | Leave a comment
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Is something wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

 

There is a lot of stigma attached to depression and people suffering it themselves often think that there must be something wrong with them to be feeling that way and that they should be able to turn it around. Depression is not a character weakness, but it is an illness. We wouldn’t tell a heart attack patient to ‘just get on with things’ but to visit a doctor to treat the heart attack. The same applies to people with depression. Depression needs medical attention and can, in most cases, not just be dealt with by the client.

Is it true that in many instances depressive illness will naturally remit?

Interestingly this is true. After a time period between six to twenty-four months it may subside. The fact though remains that suffering from this psychic pain is as intolerable as physical pain and it is therefore not encouraged to just wait until it goes away. In addition the depressed person has nothing to show to validate their feelings, which in many cases makes it worse.

Isn’t taking drugs just avoiding reality and avoid facing how you feel?

Yes, but the drugs improve your ability to cope with the circumstances. Depression renders patient less able or unable to access their normal problem-solving abilities and they often feel a lack of self-confidence, which means that whatever the problem, it always seems harder or impossible to deal with.

Medication also restores the ability to feel emotions to the normal level, which means that the patients can still feel their sadness but also experience the other side of the emotional scale.

Will I get addicted to the medication? Continue Reading Depression – Questions And Answers…

Depression – See The Signs In A Loved One

January 30, 2011 at 3:56 pm | Posted in health | 2 Comments
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If you have a family member dealing with dark moods or depression but you are not sure if it is serious enough to go and look for medical help, this article will clarify your observations and help you make the right decision.

Down...

It’s in the experience – not necessarily in the word

Depression is one of the words that have found its way out of the medical dictionary into people’s everyday language. Clinical depression is however an illness and has not much to do with feeling depressed about something which passes after a short period of time. This is an illness and has nothing to do with a character flaw or any personal faults or deficiencies.

If you want to clarify if your loved one is suffering from depression you will notice the following symptoms:

1. Loss of interest or pleasure in all activities Continue Reading Depression – See The Signs In A Loved One…

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