Symptoms of Depression - What You Need to Know

This article has to do with a symptoms of clinical depression and how you can determine if you have this disease.

One of the firists points that needs to be made in any discussion on the topic of  clinical depression is that it has some very contradictory symptoms. For example, one of the symptoms of depression is the inablility to fall asleep or stay asleep. This is referred to as insomnia. At the same time, however, another symptom of clinical depression is called hypersomnalence which means "sleeping to much or all the time" in layman's terms.

Another contradictory symptom of depression is the loss of appetite. This should not be confused with anorexia, however, which is a disorder characterized by a distorted view of one's body. The anorexic looks into the mirror and sees themselves as "fat" even though they are actually nothing but  "skin and bones". With this in mind it is important to make the distinction between loss of appetite and and anorexia. Now this is where another contradictory symptom of depression comes to light in that the depressed individual often can be an over-eater.

An additional symptom of depressoin is frequent bouts of crying or sobbing. When this occurs it is important to keep in mind that the crying and sobbing is not triggered by a hurtful life experience such a the death of a loved one. In this case it is not unusual for the clinically depressed person to actually not be aware of what they are crying about.

It is at this point that a distiction needs to be made between clinical depression, which is a mental illness, and the grief process. When a person is greiving some loss, such as the death of a loved one, they go through a six-step process known as grieving. After the person has completed these six steps, starting with denial and ending with acceptance, the non-depressed person gets on  with their life. This is not true of the clinically depressed person who remains stuck in a depressed state for months or years, depending upon how soon they are able to get help.