How do you know if you are depressed besides the fact that you feel depressed? I’m talking “clinical depression.” The kind for which you need to seek professional help. The kind that if you let it go you may end up hurting yourself.
The kind that leaves you laying in bed most of the day wondering what the point of life is and how the hell you’re going to make it through another never ending insufferable day. A day that was just like yesterday; that will be just like tomorrow. One running into another like one long slow song playing in slow motion through quick sand under water on repeat.
According to the medical people there are several symptoms you need to have almost every day for two consecutive weeks to meet the criteria of being depressed. These include:
- “Fatigue or loss of energy almost every day
- Feelings of worthlessness or guilt almost every day
- Impaired concentration, indecisiveness
- Insomnia or hypersomnia (excessive sleeping) almost every day
- Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities nearly every day (called anhedonia, this symptom can be indicated by reports from significant others)
- Restlessness or feeling slowed down
- Recurring thoughts of death or suicide
- Significant weight loss or gain (a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month)” (source WedMD)
If you have any of these symptoms please talk to your doctor about it. Depression is treatable. Many people take medication for it and many do not. Some go to therapy. Often people do both. You and your doctor will decide what the best course of action is for you.
Personally, I do both. I figure hit it with all we’ve got. What have I got to lose except some nasty symptoms that lead me to thinking about my own death. I can’t have that. I have a family. A life. A purpose for being here. We all do. You do!
Get the help you need if you think you have depression. You deserve it.
Write into the Light 
Thank you. After trauma we can go into dorsal vagal shutdown. (Polyvagal theory.) That shutdown is the depression that we experience. It is a survival mechanism. If we weren’t dissociated from our deep pain and trauma and my memories and emotions and body how would we survive and continue with some daily tasks? Dissociation gives us the ability to keep breathing and going about living. But dissociation feels like an empty void floating in a hopeless, powerless, helpless timeless sea of identity-less nothing. Depression. A living death. Dorsal vagal is the state animals go into to “play dead” when the predator is right there. No wonder we feel awful – our physiology is in a state of playing dead. Preparing for death. Yes, it feels like death, this depression. Our body went into playing dead due to the horrific nature of the trauma. To survive. But it is still playing dead. It hasn’t received the memo that we are now same. The nervous system still thinks it is about to die. Thank you again. X
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Thank you for naming another facet of depression. Dissociation is a very powerful symptom that you describe well here.
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*safe. Not “same”
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