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Mass occurrence This disease is soon the second leading cause of death
Depression is still socially taboo and above all underestimated. The consequences for those affected can have massive effects. The number of clinical patients has also skyrocketed for years. According to calculations by the World Health Organization (WHO), around 350 million people worldwide suffer from the mental illness. 4 million people are affected in Germany alone. Depression is often closed to outsiders. This is the nature of the disease: First, all people feel oppressed from time to time, see their environment through dark glasses and say, "I am depressed," and only keep depressive sufferers for people who feel "bad.".
The retreat of the sick
Second, the more it gets worse, the more invisible the disease becomes. Depressed people feel a burden on their environment. They find no meaning in life, in chronic depression they lose hope and not a few kill themselves. They totally isolate themselves from the outside world.
Depression is a common disease. In Germany alone, four million people are said to be affected. The unreported number should be even higher. (Image: Dan Race / fotolia.com) Strange as it may sound: his friends are not aware that a depressive person is in a dangerous phase, but that he "disappears": he does not answer, does not answer the phone, his apartment is on fire no light.
Danger of death in depression
Not taking clinical depression seriously can have fatal consequences. Outsiders think that those affected are like themselves. They have a "bad mood" because not everything works in life.
But the sick lose not only the desire for, but also the will to live. The WHO estimates that suicide and suicide will be the second most common cause of death in the world because of depression in 2020.
One in ten kills itself
The danger of suicides among the depressed is clear: about 15% of people with severe depression take their own lives. One in two commits suicide at least once in their lives.
Depression: A common disease
One in two people between the ages of 18 and 65 in Germany is so ill with depression that he or she is being treated. That's 3.1 million people. There are also the unrecognized, who are not in treatment, and the elderly and younger, who also suffer from the disease.
No subjective feeling
Lay people often make the mistake of holding depression for a subjective feeling of those affected. However, the disease has an objective effect on the organism: in contrast to normal pain, depressive disorders first appear as a result of physical complaints. These include lack of sexual interest, insomnia and lack of appetite.
These include severe pain in the gastrointestinal tract, dizziness and chronic fatigue.
confusion
Depression in the clinical area can therefore be confused in two ways. On the one hand both concerned and outsiders see the physical symptoms and suspect causes other than depression: iron deficiency, vitamin D deficiency or influenza-like infections are sometimes similar.
On the other hand, they see the psychological problems as a result of physical symptoms: lack of sleep leads to depression, pessimism comes from chronic fatigue or discomfort from lack of food.
The patient himself, unfortunately, in his hopelessness, is the last one who could articulate what causes what effect.
Sorry without reason
How can outsiders recognize depression??
Depression manifests itself as mourning without a recognizable trigger, which is often emphasized by those affected. When I grieve because my friend left me or my mother died, I'm not depressed.
But when I say myself, without pretending that I am content with my environment and my social relationships, but at the same time fall into the deepest despair, it is me.
If I was drunk at parties two nights in a row and can not get up in the morning, it also makes me mentally sick, I have a hangover. On the other hand, if I can not get up in the morning, I feel depressed when paralyzed without having played my part.
Crying, without knowing why, the simplest tasks, not believing to be able to cope, having the feeling that a block of ice on the chest, the fear of leaving the house - all this marks a depression.
What are the disease accelerators?
Depression does not only drive you into suicide, it also worsens your overall health: lack of sleep, malnutrition and lack of exercise gnaw your body.
Other illnesses worsen due to the simultaneous depression. While positive suggestions favor psychosomatic healings, depression means the opposite: diabetes mellitus and the condition after heart attacks are much less favorable if the sufferer is suffering from depression.
That's the treatment
The Chairman of the German Depression Association Prof. Dr. med. med. Ulrich Hegerl calls depression "a common, serious, but treatable disease".
He does not give an all-clear: "The life expectancy is reduced by ten years and the suffering is greater than in almost all other diseases. It is a common, severe, mostly recurrent disease. "
At the same time, he laments knowledge deficits, especially among employers. He advises patients to make no decisions during their depressive phases.
No sadness
Hegerl sharpens depression from grief. Grief is a strong feeling. In the case of depression, on the other hand, "not only can the patients not feel joy, but they can no longer perceive any feelings, including sadness. The technical term is "feeling of insensitivity". People feel petrified inside. Add to that a permanent sense of exhaustion and inner tension, comparable to the feeling of being tested. "
Depressive predisposition?
The expert warns against attaching too much importance to external events: "Decisive is a predisposition, caused by genetic factors or traumatized and abusive experiences in early stages of life. If this predisposition is pronounced, even small occasions - a little frustration, a small overwork situation, to slip into depression. Often, however, no concrete triggers can be identified. "
Depression can lead to sub-functions in the brain. (Image: Henrie / fotolia) This also applies to the myth of winter depression: Season without influence on depression also applies vice versa. People in depressive phases are no happier in sunshine than in the November Nebula.
However, trauma-related diseases can be associated with major depression. These include, for example, the post-traumatic stress disorder or borderline.
The underrated disease
Clinical depression is not only one of the most common mental illnesses with severe physical consequences, but also the most underrated. In Germany, on the one hand, this is due to a very "German" way of dealing with the problem: depressives are quickly regarded as "crabs" who "need a kick in the butt," which makes their suffering much worse.
Secondly, the behavior of suicides as a trigger for suicide, but not a clinical depression as the cause of this behavior is often: Who has no work and no social contacts, who takes drugs or falls for alcohol, then considered someone who sees no way out because he has no prospects. But if the reason for this lack of perspective was depression, it is often not recognized. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)