Written Expression: Clinical Depression

ROUGH DRAFT - Written Expression - Depression To those with depression, life can feel hopeless and empty. Feeling down from time to time is something many humans experience. However, when this constant feeling of hopelessness is carried into every day to day life, it can become a serious mood disorder. Clinical depression is a disorder of feeling constant sadness, anger, and frustration, affecting one’s mood, health, and wellbeing. Depression is widespread, affecting 1 in every 33 children, and 1 in every 8 adults, totaling to 14.8 million American adults. According to The American Journal of Psychiatry, the rise of depression increased from 3.3% in 1991 to 7% in 2002, more than doubling. Depression can affect many types of people in

One of the first terms coined for depression was called “melancholia.” Writings about depression appeared in Mesopotamian texts dating back to 2000 millennium BCE, where Greek and Roman philosophers debated the causes of depression. Early doctors believed that depression was a psychological and biological disease, and they treated patients with the extract from poppy seeds and donkey’s milk. Hippocrates, a Greek physician, believed that the cause of depression led to chemical imbalances in the body, such as an overload of black bile in the spleen. He believed that depression, or melancholia could be treated by removing toxic bloods from the body through exercise, bathing, and dieting. Opposing this belief, Cicero, a Roman philosopher believed that depression was caused by anger, fear, grief, and more so mental issues rather than biological. Early Greeks believed that depression, like other mental diseases, was the same as physical diseases. In the Middle Ages, religious people believed that depression was attributed to demonic possession. In 1621, Robert Burton outlined the causes

Depression can be identified with symptoms of irritability, pessimism, lack of interest, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, low energy, difficulty decision making, headaches, and even thoughts of suicide. People who are at risk tend to be middle-aged women; they are twice as likely to be depressed than men. People with failed marriages can also increase their chances of having depression, and after pregnancy, women can feel an emptiness and depression. Experiencing life trauma, stressful change, and big events in life can also lead to depression. Depression causes some people to lose weight dramatically, as they do not feel the need to eat. Other times, depression can cause people to rapidly gain weight as they use eating as a coping mechanism to their