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How to Know If You Have Depression?

Depression is a kind of mood disorder that involves a constant feeling of despair and loss of interest. It is something more than just mood fluctuations that people usually experience as a part of life. But how do you know if you have depression or you are just sad? 

The best way to understand your condition is to get diagnosed properly by a psychologist or psychiatrist, or you may also consider visiting a therapist for a clearer picture of your emotional wellbeing. Here are a few questions you may ask yourself to understand if you need help.

1. What kind of emotions you have been feeling lately?

If you feel fear jolting through your body in situations, then it may be anxiety, a fear-based condition.

Depression can push you down in shame which further can manifest as waves of guilt, despair, and even rage and emotional outbursts. If you are having any such difficult emotions with very frequent mood changes, it can be a bipolar disorder which is a type of depression.

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2. Do you have noticeable physical symptoms?

Some of the noticeable symptoms of stress and anxiety are muscle tension, disturbed digestive system, sweaty palms, increased heart rate etc. Do you feel exhausted all the time everything and everything you do seems a big effort to you? Does your body feel made of sand or lead? Or do you feel dissociated from your body entirely? These physical symptoms indicate that you may be suffering from depression.

3. Do you feel difficulty in sleeping or sleeping excessively?

Do you feel sleepy most of the time even in the daytime and feel difficult to get up when the alarm clock goes off? Or do you feel difficulty falling asleep at all and have bad dreams or wake up tired? Or unable to fall asleep at all? Depression can be the reason that is causing you sleep disturbances.

Anxiety is a kind of mental disorder and another reason that affects sleep badly as either your mind keep racing, or your sleep is disturbed by the anxiety attacks.

4. Check your appetite

Have you been overeating or not feeling to eat at all? Any major appetite changes can be signs of depression.

5. Do you overthink or think in the negative direction always?

Take time to listen to your own thoughts, to understand what you are going through. If you often think for hours over a certain situation or a negative experience it may be due to depression or anxiety. If your thoughts have become doom and gloom, then it may be depression. 

Negative thinking is forever present with depression, as are ‘cognitive distortions‘, where a person imagines things worse than the actuality. Severe depression, impacts your thinking so badly you can even think of hurting yourself or others.

If this is happening with you, you need to seek help immediately by calling a free helpline number, or emergency services like online counselling for depression.

Depression doesn’t just vanish in a day or week, It is something that shows its impacts on your life slowly and drastically. Depression can happen due to any reason from unresolved past experiences to shocking incidents etc. It impacts our ability to enjoy good things badly. But trying therapy and counselling or online depression counselling in case you do not have a therapist nearby, can just not help you in managing your depression, but you will be less likely to fall into depression again in the future.