Suicide and depression

by omarovitch (student)

Many people, especially young people today believes that they are going through many series of depression although they can not really identify what depression is. A lot of people say that depression is a temporary feeling of sadness. So many people these days say, "I'm depressed", easily during a conversation when they feel sad. Feeling sad is normal for everyone since people can go through events in life that dissatisfies them. However, feeling blue does not mean you are actually suffering from depression. These days, many people who aren't aware of depressions result, pay less attention to it. However, depression is actually a disease just like cancer. Many people believe disease is a condition that occurred from virus, germs or by being a host for parasites. However, the real definition for disease in current days dictionary is "a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning: sickness, malady - "Webster Online'. Depression is a disease that affects in both physical ways and mental ways. In physical terms, a person can suffer insomnia, oversleeping, fatigue and many others symptoms, and in mental ways, the person can feel guilt, constant sadness, many mistakes, slowed mind, and depending on how the patient reacts to these symptoms, it can also affect social part of health. Even though depression is a dangerous, many people who aren't aware of its symptoms, often ignore and care less serious about it. However depression has to be taken seriously since it can even lead someone to death.

Depression can occur to anyone despite his or her race, skin or hair colour, age, location or religion. There are many researches stating that there is a difference in between sexes. Some researches found that depression is common among women, while some researches discovered that males are in higher risk of getting depression due to their stress in work, and die easily.

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In the past times, people believe that only adults suffer from depression, but as a matter of fact, that is not true. Now the researches show that even infants can get depressed. There even was an incident when an infant died due to limited human contacts. Anyway, Teenagers through puberty is famous for being moody. Now some people argue that many teenagers are suffering clinic depression. Also their studies revealed that the first episode of depression is more likely to occur at an earlier age than the previous generation. Although it's not only the adults who can suffer from depression, but it is true that adults have higher chance to suffer from a period of depression. Depressive disorder frequently occurs between the ages of 24-44.

What causes the depression? Well, there are 4 different categories which scientist use to identify the cause of depression. The first factor could be environmental factor, and that consists difficult relationships, losses, and financial problems. This factor is mainly related to stress. The second factor is the psychological factor. People with this problem are mainly those who have a pessimistic view to life, low self-esteem, and worry excessively. People with this quality are often the people who suffered a stressful life during their young life. The third factor is the genetic factor. Many people didn't really trust on this, however, it is likely that you have high chance of suffering clinic depression if your family member from past generation already suffered it. The last factor is the biochemical factor. Scientists believe that some people have more and different brain chemicals compared to others. Many of the scientists believe that those who are mainly depressed in terms of biochemical ways are the ones who have less brain chemicals.

The depression, however for the most part, it is not so hard to cure. There are many antidepressant drugs and there are some other treatments such as psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy (in easy words, shock therapy). There are few specific types of depression that is yet hard to manage. Such as bipolar depression or manic-depression (manic, think of a word that relates to this, mania, maniac), can be treated by using the salts of the metal lithium, but the victim has to live his entire life living off it. Anyway, the treatments for most of the clinic depression are out. Some treatments however, are quite irregular, such as the shock therapy. Basically, It's just shocking the victim with clinic depression with electricity. This treatment that looks so cruel, however is proven for its efficiency. But yet, this is dangerous, so it should be only used for the "last resort' kind of situation.

Depression is obviously bad, but yet some artistic people in the society, prefers to have depression period. Why? Are they crazy? Well, no, there is a reason to all this. We all view depression as just an obstacle or debris in our path of life. But those who do suffer from depression become somewhat euphoric over artistic works and creativity. This is proven through researches, and by far about 80 percent of the creative people, were identified to have suffered from depression, while only 30 percent of lawyers, hospital administrators and social workers suffered from the illness. Yet, of course, becoming depressed is not always good. Sometimes, it can lead many people to go crazy and destructive, as for bipolar depression as an example.

Suicide and Depression was almost always related since many suicidal were depressed (there are fakers out there who only commit suicide just to get the attention from people. When people know that you are going to die, they care more about you, and really listen to every single word you say. People attempt suicides sometimes only to get the ultimate attention from the people.). So how does a person become suicidal by being depressed? Well the answer can come from anywhere since the depression can vary in its differences, but most of the times, alcohol and drug abuses are one of the important factor that leads to depression-suicide. Many drugs people take are alcohol, cocaine (slang names such as smack and crack) and heroin, and they are known as depressants, which triggers chemicals in the brain to feel euphoric and they start to feel blue. The people, who take drugs, often retake them to boost the mood, but the drugs and alcohol worsens the symptoms. After severe depression, that person is mostly likely to feel guilt, fatigue, helpless, hopeless and feeble, and will start planning about suicides or most of the times, even attempt it. Studies have also shown that those who attempted suicide earlier, are likely to attempt it again in the future.