How often did you feel that you don’t feel like getting up in the morning? You would rather lie in and remain indolent for the rest of the day? You would rather forget about work, progress, achievement, and competition and think of other things. But at times, you may feel ashamed if you totally unproductively waste your time like this. Hardly ever do we have an opportunity to do like this; mostly, we plod on until we grow heavy with fatigue and stress. When this condition becomes permanent, we begin to feel its impact on our health. When we feel low, is it common sadness or maybe something worse creeping in?
The first thing we should do to take care of ourselves is identify our low feelings. Can it be a symptom of depression setting in? The red signals listed below can give you an idea of what’s wrong with you and if the time has come to seek professional advice.
You lose touch with things that play a big part in your life
You know what friends, beliefs and events bring purpose and fulfillment into your life; lately, you have found it difficult to find time for them all. There’s always something that distracts you and demands your attention elsewhere.
You are unable to get out from under
So you feel buried under an onrush of dispiritedness, loneliness, and sheer misery; you are never completely rested and feel up to your tasks. You cannot track down the reasons why you are in such a state. Whatever you try to erase this feeling and buoy yourself up fails miserably. You don’t seem to be able to feel good at all.
Your condition gets externalized
If you are in the grasp of depression, it may be manifested through various external symptoms: you can go heavy on alcohol, express aggression, initiate an affair on the side, and become estranged from people who are dear to you. Also, depression can lead to poor sexuality, backache and other physical ails that are generally not associated with depression.
Other widespread signs of inchoate depression are tiredness that doesn’t pass away and radical changes in your sleeping and eating habits (you tend to get much more or much less of sleep and food).
Anger gets out of control
The condition can also express itself through getting irritable and flaring out, since anger is always near at hand when an individual feels inefficient inside, unable to control the situation.
This means depression is often accompanied by agitation, hostility, as well as by fear of rejection and attempts to shun it. Now if anger and agitation have begun to grow more powerful, it indicates that depression is getting worse.
Agitation, irritability and anger can point to the fact that the mind is troubled and there may well be mental illnesses lurking… Other people often only see that a person is irritable, but underlying it there can be shame, despondency, futility, and other negative emotions.
Once you have registered that you snap out of patience quickly and start shouting at the members of your family at the slightest provocation, it’s time to ponder over your deep-seated emotions that drive you to such violent outbursts.
You’re not where and who you want to be in life
It is actually quite a customary gap. In the natural run of things it’s what pushes us to develop ourselves and move on, but it can also be a source of deep dejection. With a negative mind frame people are apt to believe they are in a rut with no bright perspective ahead, and we are to blame for that.
Perfectionism rules
Now it has been known for decades that perfectionism and depression are closely related to each other. The attitude when one is an all-or-nothing kind of person, divorced from any compromise, or when one’s expectations are utterly fanciful – these extreme forms of perfectionism are what depression generally thrives on.
While people cling to the belief that others respect and love only individuals who are nothing less than perfect, perfectionism will remain linked with depression.
There is no door out of the situation
A depressive state is not something that can be willed away, shaken off, ignored even if you want to very much. Depression is a mental condition that can be addressed only professionally and treated with prescribed medicines.
Bouts of depression may go on and on for years, and those who wish to fight depression may need long months to achieve tangible results.
Your productivity decreases markedly
You find yourself going on being incredibly lazy, and you cannot tear yourself away from the condition. Your laziness overrides your wishes to get on with your work, and studies, it mars your relationships.
When looking for depression signs, psychologists aim to find the tale-telling four D’s – that is, deviance, distress, danger, and dysfunction.
When your indolent condition totally prevents you from going through your workday motions, leaves you ineffectual and spent by the end of the day with a backload of tasks growing, you should really consider consulting a mental health expert.
Concentration is badly blurred
What depression can affect especially adversely is your concentration abilities. If your productivity and social life crumble down due to lack of concentration, it may be a bad case of depression.
The state is frequently caused by traumas or personal feelings that are rarely shown to the people around. When a person feels worthless for a long time they get depressed by the feeling and it takes toll on their concentration, interfering with their academic studies or performance at work.
Pathological guilt (about unexpected things)
We do come out of certain situations with a guilty feeling, but those struggling with depression have guilt tainting every sphere of their lives. This condition is known as “pathological guilt” – the sufferers, looking over their past, perceive their lives as a long string of failings.
When guilt begins to grow on a person, it can reach absolutely absurd extensions. In the clutches of depression the very fact of their birth makes people feel guilt; they take on blame for playing their social roles and maybe even for having depression as well.
You don’t see the good side
As people get in the habit of overblowing any negative aspect of a given situation while discounting everything positive, such behavior gradually becomes highly devastating.
A study revealed that a depressed individual focuses on smiling faces around them to a much less extent than people free from depression. He or she can even shun positive and comfortable situations because they are perceived as incongruent to their state of mind.
Some of these people consider themselves to be “realistic” not noticing that their “realism” is definitely negative through and through and simply allows them to come to terms with depression. Check your reaction to good news (or even neutral ones) and see whether you are inclined to gainsay their bright sides, play them down.
Anxiety
Depression doesn’t necessarily make you anxious, yet depression and anxiety are known to co-exist. Checking yourself for anxiety, look for the following signs:
- you are chronically unnerved, uptight, and restless
- you can panic out of the blue or you have misgivings
- your heart races for no good reason
- you breathe heavily or too fast
- you are inclined to perspire heavily
- you fidget, shiver, have tics
- you can concentrate only on whatever is troubling you but not on other things
Emotions get out of hand
Something triggers off rage; then, you are tearful all of a sudden. Without a visible reason your emotions wax and wane unpredictably and so suddenly that you can be amazed yourself. That is because depression is linked with mood swings.
Cherishing a suicide
Those who eventually commit suicide are apt to reveal their intentions at some time or other. They raise this topic or try a mild attempt at injuring themselves before getting down to it in earnest. If you believe that a person you know can inflict injuries on themselves or somebody else, you should:
- dial the emergency number of your district
- keep an eye on the person in question until professionals take over
- conceal any weapons, pills, knives – everything that can be used to wreak damage
- hear them out without shouting, arguing or voicing judgments.
When you feel sure someone you know is on the verge of committing suicide, appeal to a suicide prevention squad.
Providing you discover that you have experienced the aforementioned signs for several weeks – it would be prudent to suspect depression. As soon as you realize that you are laboring under depression, seek professional assistance.
