Depression is a mood disorder that affects more than 10% of the global population. It is important to distinguish it from sadness which can be due to a specific event such as a loss and, thus, it can be a temporary condition.
The depressed person feels low in mood and usually describes what they are feeling as sadness or despair. They lose interest in life, reduce their activities and find it difficult to experience pleasure in daily life.
By entering into a psychorherapy process, a person may successfully manage this situation, provided that the psychotherapist is skilled to empathize with the mental pain experienced by a depressed person.
Functional Depression
The signs of this depression are subtle because they may lie underneath or be covered by a veil of functionality in a person’s daily life. In this case, the person although experiences a difficult psychological state, tries and manages to meet their professional, family, etc. commitments resulting in their symptoms not being easily perceived by those around them.
Some characteristics of these people are the following:
- Their social life is limited and they do not enjoy participating in recreational activities as much as they should. Their negative emotions barely change.
- When they carry out their duties they usually isolate themselves and retreat into themselves.
- They engage in intense and continuous self-criticism, resulting in high expectations and not being able to enjoy their achievements.
- They ruminate on their problems ending up to feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
- They have limited activities that falsely help them to relax from the tension of everyday life, such as watching TV series or excessive engagement with social networks.
- They may abuse alcohol, drugs, and various substances in order to cope with the stress they feel or to temporarily alter the heavy emotion they experience.
- The friendly and family environment does not realize that the person needs help unless the individual themselves recognize it or unless some external stimulus prompts them to ask for help.
What to do
Regardless of the treatment the person may choose to pursue, which may include medication, psychotherapy sessions, or a combination of both, they should keep in mind that the key to solving their problem lies within themselves as long as they follow the steps below:
- To cultivate in himself the belief that it is a temporary condition and will not last for the rest of their life.
- Try to talk to close people or people they trully trust.
- Take a brake of their negative thoughts which maintain the symptoms of depression.
- To ensure that there is physical activity in their daily life, whether this is a fitness program or even a simple walk. Physical activity has a positive effect in all mental states because it regulates in our brain the action of substances that cause pleasure, making it a completely natural way to feel well-being.
- Engaging in some artistic activity is also extremely helpful as it indirecty fuels the expression of our emotions
