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Grief is Not Depression Essay

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Depression Feeling grieve over difficult life decisions such as illness, death, divorce, or job lost are often mistakenly seen as depression. Grieving is normal as long as it does not last a significant amount of time or interferes with one’s daily activities (Association). Depression causes people to experience lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Depression is a medical illness that involves the brain. More than 20 million people in the United States alone struggle with depression (Health). Depression is most common in women and …show more content…

The physical symptoms of depression are digestive problems, headaches, chest pains, dizziness, insomnia or sleeping too much, and significant weight change (VisualMD). That being said depression affects the entire body and the sensory input. The person depressed is numb to many things. Foods are not appetizing. This person only does what is essential sort of like “going with the flow.”
Having a support system is essential for a recovery from depression. A person with depression tends to shut others from their lives. Depression interferes with daily life and can cause pain for both you and those around you. The first step to recovering is to talk to a friend or see a doctor or mental health specialist. The doctor can prescribe antidepressants or tell you to see a therapist. The doctor asks a variety of questions. These questions include when depression symptoms first started, how long has there been a pattern of depression, and family history of depression (VisualMD).
Depression is a very treatable disease, even in severe cases. There are two major forms of treatment, psychotherapy and pharmacologic therapy. For some people psychotherapy is all that is needed to recover from depression. Psychotherapy has been proven to cause changes in brain function just as the changes that pharmacologic therapy does. In some cases this form of therapy is more affective then medications. However psychotherapy along with exercise and medications can be very effective as well.

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