Depression And Making Up Excuses

If you've ever been depressed you should know the feeling. Your friends that you haven't seen for a while call you and ask you to meet them, to go out, to socialize because they miss you, they long to see you and catch up. You honestly want to see them, you care about them and of course you value the relationship but being depressed going out seems like a living nightmare... You have no desire to leave your room, you despise the idea of meeting anyone... You hardly look yourself at the mirror. "I'm sorry... I can't come..." Then things go tricky... You try to come up with a reasonable and feasible excuse. Your friends feel rejected, unwanted and there's nothing you can do about it. I've attempted to say "I'm depressed, I don't feel like going out" but it's of no help. The coclusion of all these: you end up losing most of your friends because of bloody depression...


What is depression though? Do you really know? Most people have a vague idea.

Clinical depression is a mood disorder and can present with a variety of symptoms, however almost all patients display a marked change in mood, a deep feeling of sadness, and a noticeable loss of interest or pleasure in favourite activities. Other recurrent symptoms are: insomnia or oversleeping, loss or in certain cases increase of appetite, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, thought of death and suicide, decreased energy and fatigue (especially in the morning), physical symptoms that can't be connected to a health problem. Symptoms must be present for at least two weeks for depression to be diagnosed.
Depression affects 7-18% of the population on at least one occasion in their lives. It's more common in women. I won't go on analyzing all the types of depression, you can find more info here or just google it! Long live the digital Web.
Depression can be co-morbid with anxiety. Depression if accompanied by periods of mania or hypomanic episodes is defined as bipolar disorder. I'll dedicate one of my next posts to manic depression or more appropriately called bipolar disorder.

Suggested links for further reading: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5