THIS is the second instalment of my three-part series of common mental health disorders in Guyana, providing a general understanding of what they are. For those who missed it, please check online for last month’s piece on addiction, an often overlooked one.
Today, I’m going to dive into depression, the most common mental health disorder worldwide, with over 280 million people afflicted.

Despite its commonality, it is often misunderstood. When people think of depression, they often think of an individual lying in bed, crying all day, when in actuality, this is a very small percentage of depression as the majority walk among us, completely unnoticed.
When I ask people to define depression, they often say it’s the same as being sad and they are 50 percent right. Being sad is a normal emotion and not a mental health issue. The symptoms are low mood, isolation, physiological responses such as crying, and behavioural responses such as over and undereating. The symptoms of depression are not much different, but to differentiate between sadness, there are two things to keep in mind – duration and severity of feelings/symptoms.

If you are feeling sad based on a specific circumstance and your mood, eating and sleeping patterns are off for a few days, that’s completely normal. If the symptoms worsen and last for over weeks at a time, it is a sign of a potential mental health illness- which could have been underlying and is now triggered or awakened.

Depression is a hidden illness where most people seem to be living a normal and even happy lives, but struggling alone on the inside. If you are not certain whether you are suffering from depression, some common symptoms include changes in mood, eating and sleeping patterns, difficulty with everyday functioning such as memory, concentration, motivation and productivity, irritability, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and physical symptoms such as low energy, head and body aches.

Mental Illness is never our fault, and this becomes very apparent when you learn the risk factors such as genetics, hormones and trauma.
There are also different types of depression and knowing some of the most common also helps you to better understand your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
The most common is Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), which has all the traditional symptoms and disrupts your day-to-day life with significant impairment. You do not feel like you can do what others can accomplish in a day, which of course, makes you feel even worse.

There is Manic depression, which confuses a lot of people because there are bursts of energy where you genuinely feel a high level of euphoria for some time. People with mania typically live on a high-low scale, where there are really low or really high moods and it can become very confusing and defeating as when you feel the bursts of happiness, you feel like the depression has lifted and become greatly disappointed when it returns.

Another very common mental illness is situational depression. As the name suggests, this is triggered by a specific traumatic situation, such as a death in the family, a romantic breakup, losing employment or developing a chronic physical illness. However, it is important to keep in mind that due to the neurotransmitter change in the brain that causes depression, the depressive symptoms may not leave even when the situation has improved.

Depressive symptoms stem from a lack of positive chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine. This can happen due to a traumatic event or a natural chemical imbalance you may have. The brain tends to adapt to what it perceives as the “normal” amount of chemicals, so it may not naturally produce these positive chemicals as it used to. This is why it is important to take immediate action on doing anything that increases these positive chemicals for you; this may be exercise, spending time with loved ones, music, prayer- anything that brings you joy and comfort.

Depression doesn’t always have a good reason, and that comes with a lack of empathy. To other people, your life may look ideal, but so many uncontrollable factors can make you feel hopeless and helpless on the inside. Everyone should know that it is rare that how a person feels on the inside coincides with how they look on the outside; sometimes, those people barely even know each other.

With sadness, you can still bring yourself to do things you previously enjoyed because it makes you feel better. Depression, on the other hand, can be all-consuming and doesn’t allow us to pick and choose what parts of our lives are impacted, when and for how long. Your low mood no longer feels like a choice.
The good news is depression is treatable and you do not have to feel this way. Please speak to someone you trust or go to your nearest health centre to find available resources.