BG Reports

By Meghan Coburn

Many people do not understand what depression really is. Some people confuse it with being upset or grieving over certain things. When they do not get to enjoy nice weather, they become upset. Depression is more than just feeling upset, it is a disability.

Depression is a mental illness that some individuals suffer from. There are different types of depression such as: reactive depression, endogenous, postnatal, depression with psychotic features, and bipolar. Individuals who experience depression may be a result of disturbances that occur in the brain chemistry, seasonal influences and negative life events. There are several different things that could trigger one to be diagnosed with this mental disability.

Photo taken from the story, "See a Grey World" CREDIT: stockxpert

Individuals can suffer from depression at several different moments in their life. For example, college students deal with stress on a daily basis between a routinely Monday through Friday busy agenda. For someone who has depression, this can trigger it to worsen or if you have not been diagnosed yet, this could be a way of finding out that you suffer from depression.

Garrett Gilmer, associate director at the Bowling Green State University Counseling Center said a lot of individuals suffer from depression and a lot of them get diagnosed in college with this disorder due to the high-stress and busy schedules. Depression also affects nearly 14 million Americans per year.

In addition to school work playing a factor for worsening this mental disability, people with depression suffer from being social and lack energy to go out.

Kathleen Quinn a freshman at BGSU and an education major understands people who have depression.

“I know quite a few people who I worked with that suffer from depression. They were very quiet and never wanted to do anything. Even though they think they are being outgoing you can tell they somewhat shelter themselves.” Quinn said.

Depression is not just feeling sad. Being sad is a natural emotion. To cry or grieve is a natural human emotion.

“It is sometimes hard to distinguish between someone who actually has this disability or if the person is just upset about something that happened,” Gilmer said.

In a survey from 2008, results showed that 45 percent of women and 36 percent of men have been struggling or dealing with depression. They say women have a tendency to be more depressed due to hormonal issues according to American College Health Association.

Psychologist Dr. Andrew Martin from Bowling Green State University said trying to overcome depression may be difficult but you have to start small.
Medications can help alleviate some of the issues that an individual may be dealing with and counseling centers may help.

“Depression is inherited, unfortunately. The most common form of depression that is a genetic disorder is bipolar,” said Dryw Dworsky director of the Counseling Center at BGSU. “If someone is dealing with any type of depression they need to seek professional help.”

The diagnostics for depression or any type of mental disability are done through psychological history and evaluation. If a person experiences a loss of interest in the things they once enjoyed and start feeling sad and in the dumps for at least two weeks, they may have major depression according to American Psychiatric Association.

“I am not going to consider myself to be majorly depressed because my symptoms are not that bad, but when you start feeling the way you do during depression and do not have a reason as to why, is very upsetting,” said sophomore and business major Lizzie Hoyle.

By starting small and writing down goals or things you are grateful for are steps to improving yourself.

“If you take the correct steps to getting better by seeking help, doing the small things, and taking medication then you are on the right track. You never want to make yourself be more miserable than you already are.” Dworsky said.

Tags: Depression, Sadness, Symptoms

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2012 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Enterprise Story, Spring 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.