Let's Talk About: Depression

Nearly everyone has felt depressed, sad, or down in the dumps at one time or another. Feeling depressed can be a normal reaction to a stressful event, such as when one suffers a loss or endures another of life's various struggles or stresses. Sometimes, however, these feelings of depression can become intense, last for long periods (weeks or even months) and prevent a person from doing their normal day to day activities. This is what is known as 'major' or clinical depression. It is a serious medical illness that affects how you feel, think and behave. 

Depression has a lot of features, but the most common are a deep feeling of sadness or a loss of interest or pleasure in activities which you previously liked doing. 

Other associated features include: changes in appetite (generally a loss of normal appetite), changes in sleeping pattern (generally reduced sleep), loss of energy, tiredness, difficulty in thinking, concentrating, or making decisions, irritability and restlessness, feelings of worthlessness or of being a failure or bad person, thoughts of death, of life not being worth living or of suicide, even real physical aches and pains. 

If you recognise any of above symptoms on yourself, come and let's talk about it!