Everyone feels blue now and then, and certain life events can leave you feeling down for quite a while. How do you know if you’re just sad or if it has crossed the line into clinical depression? One simple evaluation tool is whether you can identify something in particular that is evoking the sad feelings. Clearly if you have lost a loved one, sadness and grief are normal and appropriate feelings. Has there been a conflict, a disappointment, a betrayal that is bringing on the sad feelings? With just sadness, the affected person can generally still feel joy about other events in life.
Depression on the other hand tends to be more non specific and although it may feel a lot like sadness, it is usually harder to identify a specific trigger. It is often described by more of a feeling of numbness and it is usually all encompassing. There is little energy, motivation, or ability to enjoy previously enjoyable activities. The depressed person cannot just “snap out of it”
The DSM IV identifies some specific characteristics of depression that must be present for a 2 week period and represent a change from previous functioning. At least one of the symptoms must be diether depressed mood, or loss of interest or pleasure.
•Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day. An individual may express feeling sad or empty, or others may observe it (ex: appears tearful). Children and adolescents may exhibit irritability.
•Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or most, daily activities most of the day, nearly every day
•Significant weight changes (ex: a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day
•Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.
•Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day.
•Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.
•Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day.
•Indecisiveness or diminished ability to think or concentrate nearly every day.
•Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.
Many depressed people don’t recognize that their depression is an illness. The brain is an organ just like any other organ in our body and it can become ill. However because the symptoms of depression are so emotional in nature, people often feel embarassed to ask for help or think they should be able to get over it. I have noticed that Christians sometimes feel like they are letting God down if they are depressed as if this is a failure of faith on their part.
If you are feeling depressed, it is important to get help. Psychotherapy and medication together have the best results in helping depression.
If you are fairly certain that what you are feeling is sadness, it is still important to reach out for additional support as you walk through it.