depression

Depression is a serious illness. Health professionals use the terms 'depression', 'depressive illness' or 'clinical depression' to refer to something very different from the common experience of feeling miserable, or fed up, for a short period of time.

If you are depressed, you may have feelings of extreme sadness that can last for a long time. These feelings are severe enough to interfere with your daily life, and usually last for weeks, or months, rather than days.

Depression is quite a common condition, and about 15% of people will have a bout of severe depression at some point in their lives. However, the exact number of people with depression is hard to estimate because many people do not get help, or are not formally diagnosed with the condition.

Most of the 5,000 suicides committed each year in the UK are linked to depression. On average, 15% of people with recurrent depression (repeated attacks) have an increased risk of suicide.

Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men, although men are far more likely to commit suicide. This may be because men are more reluctant to seek help for depression.

Depression can affect people of any age, including children. Studies have shown that 2% of teenagers in the UK, are affected by depression.

People with a family history of depression are more likely to experience depression themselves. Depression affects people in many different ways and can cause a wide variety of physical, psychological (mental) and social symptoms.

Doctors describe depression in the following three ways:

by how serious it is - if it is mild, it is likely to have some impact on your daily life, if it is moderate, it is likely to have significant impact on your daily life and, if it is severe, daily activities may be almost impossible.
by physical symptoms - if you have depression, you will probably have one or two (or maybe more) physical (somatic) symptoms, such as tiredness or a loss of appetite.
by psychotic symptoms - if you have depression, you may also have psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations, or delusions. However, these symptoms do not affect everyone with depression.

A few people still think that depression is 'not a real illness', and that it is some sort of 'weakness', or admission of failure. This is simply not true. Depression is a real illness with real effects, and it is certainly not a sign of failure. In fact, famous leaders, such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi, all experienced bouts of depression.