Depressive Illness In 'The Fall'

"And the ramblers will say, ‘It’s got a marvelous view," but we don’t know how many lives it took; no, they’ll never know what you knew." This verse from the song "The Fall" by LoveJoy displays how some people with a depressive illness can and often do feel. It portrays the feeling of how from other perspectives, you can appear to be a functioning member of society, as said by "it’s got a marvelous view," but inside you are dealing with an illness for which there is no cure. Depression is a serious illness that is treated by society as something that people fake for attention, something they are doing for their own benefit to get out of school or work, or just an excuse for "being lazy". Most people will experience a depressive episode at some

There are many different experiences or illnesses that can appear like major depressive disorder, such as borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorders, seasonal depressive disorder, sometimes anxiety disorders can appear like depression, sometimes a psychotic illness like schizophrenia can look like depression, psychotic depression which is still labeled under major depressive disorder, and dysthymia. All of these can appear very similar or even the same from outside appearance until the person reaches out for help from a therapist, or psychiatrist. A specific identifier of borderline personality disorder is that it will come and go very quickly whereas a lot of the others are at least 2 weeks. Similarly, borderline personality disorder will also have a very fluctuating mood, it stems from neglect as a child which causes them to have intense anxiety or fear in a relationship. Something that is very specific about bipolar disorder 1 is that you will also have manic episodes, these oftentimes require hospitalization and in some cases have psychotic symptoms. Manic episodes also have a less intense version, called hypomanic episodes which never require hospitalization and never have psychotic symptoms, if you have hypomanic episodes and never manic episodes that would be considered bipolar 2, if you have both then that would be considered bipolar 1. Manic and hypomanic episodes are defined very similarly, manic episodes are defined as “3 or more of the following symptoms have persisted.. ..inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual, flight of ideas, distractibility, increase in goal-directed activity, and/or excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences” (American Psychiatric Association, 124) these symptoms are nearly the same between manic and hypomanic. There are plenty of differences between