Depression is a low mood that lasts for a long period of time and will be affecting your everyday life. In its mildest form, depression can mean just feeling a little down, more emotional and being in low spirits. In those mild cases, it doesn't stop you from leading your normal life but makes everything seem such an uphill battle and harder to do, also it can make it feel less worthwhile in trying to do things. At its worst and most severe levels, depression can be life-threatening, it can consume your every thought and you can even become suicidal. For all of us, we can say at times that we have been low and our mood is negative or depressed or down. Usually though, these feelings pass, our life takes a more positive turn, and we find the low mood shifting like a dark cloud being blown away and the sky starting to look clearer. Hopefully then, this keeps going and the sky continues to clear, the clouds get softer and lighter and eventually clear altogether. The sun comes out and the light shines. But for others, this is just the beginning of a steady decline in how we feel; the sadness can become overwhelming, and we struggle to cope. Many signs signal we are feeling depressed such as low mood, hopelessness, frustration with ourselves, feeling like we could cry at any moment. Other symptoms are that we feel unable to enjoy things or be motivated to do things, feel hopeless and despairing, low self-esteem, suicidal, restless, agitated or irritable. Also, you can feel guilty, worthless and down on yourself with those empty numb feelings inside and over time you can start finding it more difficult to connect with people, having a deep inner isolated feeling. As these feelings go on, we can start reaching for things in some way of self-support such as alcohol, drugs, smoking, too much or too little food, self-harming and putting ourselves in dangerous situations.
