“Greetings, and thank you for taking the time to listen. I am here today to talk about the importance of taking depression seriously. Why depression? Because it is a mood disorder affecting more people than we imagine and can lead to serious health complications or cause death.
To start with, depression is a widely known medical condition that has a negative impact on individuals struggling with it. One would think that a disorder that affects over 264 million individuals and is linked to suicidal thoughts would be taken more seriously, but that is not the case. This is because most people confuse it with sadness and expect individuals with depression to have absolute control over how they feel and stop having a pity party. This impacts negatively on relationships with friends and family members leading to isolation since a person is no longer him/herself.
Consequently, depression affects a person’s overall health, lowering their quality of life. It has a major impact on one’s feelings and perspective on life. People who are depressed, frequently feel sad all of the time and cry a lot. This disorder has an influence on both how a person thinks and acts. A person, for example, may not desire to engage in things that they often would. As a result, peoples’ employment and income potential may be affected by these kinds of changes.
Not only can depression render a person unable to work properly, but it can also lead to suicidal thoughts resulting to suicide. This is true according to World Health Organization where depression-related suicide accounted for 1.3 percent of all fatalities globally in 2019.This is because it causes feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and helplessness and individuals feel the need to bring all these to an end. Additionally, the stigma associated with mental diseases in also makes it difficult for people to seek help.
As I conclude, it is worth noting that we as the society must realize how rampant depression can be and become knowledgeable about mental illness in order to successfully generate awareness. We must recognize that depression is just as serious as other ailments, and that many of the traits that persons with depression exhibit are not character flaws, but rather part of the disorder.”
References
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), Fifth edition. 2013.
Dunn, G., Sham, P. C., & Hand, D. J. (1993). Statistics and the nature of depression. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 156(1), 63-87.
Moussavi, Saba, Somnath Chatterji, Emese Verdes, Ajay Tandon, Vikram Patel, and Bedirhan Ustun. “Depression, chronic diseases, and decrements in health: results from the World Health Surveys.” The Lancet 370, no. 9590 (2007): 851-858.
