Clinical Depression

Clinical depression is a severe form of depression. The sadness, clinical depression brings, overwhelms threatening too drown you in emotion. You suddenly find you cannot perform the simplest of tasks; writing a grocery list, taking your child to soccer practice are jobs you cannot possibly comprehend.
 
Clinical depression is a lasting depression. It can hang on for weeks, months, even years.

Over 19 million Americans suffer from clinical depression. Half the suicides that take place in America can be traced back to people suffering from bouts of clinical depression.

Clinical depression is common in people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease or Huntington’s disease.

The symptoms of clinical depression are the same for severe depression or manic depression:

• Your ability to function in your everyday world ceases.
• You are caught in the grip of paralyzing fear.
• You worry incessantly about everything.
• Your performance at works drops off.
• Your sleep pattern is disrupted.
• You avoid contact with family and friends, preferring to hide away in a darkened room where you unsuccessfully try to manage your thoughts.
• You experience significant weight loss or other eating disorders.
• You cannot concentrate.
• You feel worthless and insignificant.

To be diagnosed with clinical depression these symptoms must last for at least a two week period.

If these symptoms are brought on by substance abuse, then you are not a victim of clinical depression. You are a substance abuser and you should seek help immediately at a detox center.

If you have recently lost a loved one, or are schizophrenic, chances are your clinician will not diagnose you as having clinical depression.

Clinical depression is also referred to as Major Depressive Disorder. Hallucinations can occur and suicidal thoughts are common.

 If professional help is avoided, suicide can become the final answer for those overwhelmed by this disease. Clinical depression is a reactive depression, responding to stress in someone’s life, major life changes, death of a child or relative and other traumatic events. This means that while you are in clinical depression should any of these events occur, your depression can plummet even further.

There are tests found online that you can take to determine if you are clinically depressed.  Seek professional help, contact your doctor, talk to a trusted friend.

Self-help and support groups are ready and willing to help you take control of a life seemingly out of control. When there is help, there is also hope.