As an RN, I’ve watched too many of doctors prescribe antidepressant medications every time a patient starts to cry. We have become a culture that finds this practice as acceptable. I don’t mean to diminish the pain and symptoms of depression someone might experience. In fact, I suffer from symptoms of depression.
It's important to say, tears are healthy. Sadness doesn’t always need treatment. It's critical to understand that pleasure and pain come from the same source. So if you keep yourself closed off one, you won’t feel the other.
Hey, depressive symptoms can affect your family life and contribute to physical illnesses. If you’re someone who suffers depressive disorders, my heart goes out to you. I understand your struggles. I suffer from treatment resistant depression.
That means I have tired lots of prescribed medications and over time, they stopped working for me. That meant either an increase in dosage of the antidepressant medicines or an addition of another medication to enhance the antidepressant medicines i was taking.
Natural treatments for depression are important to a healthy lifestyle. I have suffered from depression since I was a young woman. My mother died when I was 18. After her death, grief, sadness and depression became an ongoing struggle. I also suffer from seasonal affective disorder. When the days become shorter and sun light is less, my depression like symptoms return.
My depression does not prevent me from functioning in the real world. Trust me, I have my really down days. Days I want to stay in bed and hide under the covers. My mother died between Thanksgiving and New Years. She has been gone 50 years now. Yet, every single year, when the holidays approach, the signs of depression reemerge. Recently, the diagnostic and statistical manual also called the DSM- 5 has included grief as a depressive disorder if symptoms go beyond two weeks. Let me explain the DSM 5.
