Are you feeling lazy when locked inside the house due to covid lockdown? It is quite natural. But does it keep you away from a daily routine like bath, meals, or sleep? It may be a sign of danger. There is a slowly spreading disease that may crawl into our minds without letting us know. Yes, it is clinical depression. In most cases, it is not visible or understood until worse. People who suffer from clinical depression may not be able to identify it or seek help. Friends or family may be noticing when the condition is disturbing daily life and social interactions. Feeling depressed is a stage people go through at least once in a life. It was added to a human being’s evolved brain in the journey of evolution, unlike animals. Some scholars consider it as a sign of a developed brain and emotions that makes us the superior race but negative emotions like depression, stress and anxiety can destroy a person’s quality of life.
The human mind is a complex functioning system with unpredictable ways of clinical manifestations. An occasional depressive feeling when facing an issue like loss of person may be normal but a non-responding and long-term depression may be pathological. After the corona pandemic spread, many lives are affected emotionally and financially in a very hard way. All the sectors including business, education, and other job pools have been having financial drops. The Internet happened to be a saviour in many ways. Online jobs and social media helped us to face the situation. Even though some people were able to continue jobs from home, not all are lucky like that. Many people lost jobs and lost financial security. Social media and mobile phones helped us to be in touch with each other but they could not replace the social and family gatherings in person. Such changes lead to emotional problems in many people. Emotional health is affected very badly at this time due to lack of job, insecurity, and isolation.
Reports say that people around the world are striving to fight depression caused by the covid and its aftereffects. Human beings are naturally social beings and they do not enjoy isolation in extreme situations. Covid has stopped us from social gatherings, physical contacts, and even family functions. So, people may feel severe emotional problems. Stress and anxiety regarding many aspects including health and economy lead to overthinking finally ending up in clinical depression in people who are more prone to the condition. But it is needed to differentiate a temporary depressed feeling with a solid and real reason from clinical depression. So proper evaluation is needed. It is called a disease condition or clinical depression when diagnosed by a professional. Depression is a disease that runs mostly with chronic pathogenesis. It does not start on a single day or all of a sudden in most cases. People with clinical depression exhibit some changes in their character, attitude, and behaviour. Sometimes it is possible to identify these as precursors of clinical depression and treatment can be started early. They are called warning signs of depression and need consideration in a clinical aspect.
Warning signs of clinical depression
- Constant depressed mood or feeling of emptiness
- The feeling of worthless of own self
- Negative thoughts and talks, less interested in talking
- Recurrent thoughts and talks about death
- Problems in decision making
- Inability to enjoy activities that the person used to enjoy before
- Unexplained weight loss or weight gain
- Deprived sleep or sleepy always
- Irritability restlessness or dragged feeling
- Lethargy or fatigue
As we can see, many warning signs of clinical depression include physical problems. This explains people presenting with physical diseases show no abnormalities in lab tests or other diagnostic tests. Even some abnormal test reports like low levels of hemoglobin can be associated with stress and anxiety. Physical and mental strength strongly depend upon each other. Physical diseases are sometimes the manifestation of mental or emotional problems. This can happen in the reverse order also. A proper and accurate clinical examination including psychological evaluation is a must for confirmation of diagnosis before starting the treatment.
Clinical depression can affect the daily life of a person from the early stage. As we have already seen, physical and mental health strongly depend upon each other and often they are mutually complementary. In clinical depression, the person may not be able to feel it or identify it as a disease. It feels like walking with heavy feet or dragging yourself forward for many days. You need a push, motivation, or any kind of interest in life by the later stages of the disease. Many times it appears as physical disease in most people. From migraine to body pain, it can be anything. A proper diagnosis is missed in many such cases. Though mild and often neglected, the signs of clinical depression can be very disturbing in daily life. The patient and the family & close relatives will suffer as well as the classmates or colleagues.
Friendship and other relationships will be disturbed in most cases. It is a total mess when you don’t look depressed even to the therapist when you feel like killing yourself inside. Depression affects your daily life, disguising as stress and anxiety at first, then transforming into a state of major depressive disorder which drains your physical and mental health. You may be completely miserable and disoriented even in daily chores. You may lose interest in studies, jobs, or hobbies. To make things worse, people find it laziness and blame you, and you will feel more depressed. You feel both anxious and guilty of being depressed but you can’t help it. Even small things like getting up from bed or brewing a cup of coffee would be very hard to do. People lack both initiation and pace of doing anything due to clinical depression. This will affect the outcome and performance both at home and workplace. Management of clinical depression includes proper diagnosis, medicines, therapies, and counselling. Ayurvedic medicines is a proven safe and effective way of natural medicine for the condition. Also, Yoga and meditation with breathing exercises can be helpful to improve the quality of life.
