Top 10 Things to Know About Major Depressive Disorder

So what is a depressive disorder?

There is so much to share about this little-understood condition it would be data overload if it was all in one article! Even those of us suffering from this mental illness don't always fully understand it, so how are those supporting us expected to know what we are going through?

As the starting point of my journey, sharing my story of healing and recovering from severe depressive disorder, I thought I'd start by listing the most important things to know about the condition, from the medical aspects to the things that no one tells you about but you will eventually find out if you have it, and those supporting us need to understand and know about to be empathetic in their support and care.

Please note, I am not a medical professional, this is just information I have gained through my own research and experiences, and is my opinion of the important information. Of course, there is so much more to know for a better understanding of this debilitating mental illness than what I am sharing below, and I will constantly share as much as I can in future articles, within my limited resources. So below are the top 10 things you need to understand about major depressive disorder.

#1 - Types of Depression

There are 3 types of depression:

1. Bipolar, otherwise known as manic depression, which is also a mood disorder;

2. Post Partum or Antenatal depression which can happen after giving birth; and

3. Major/severe Depressive Disorder aka clinical depression, which is a mood disorder that affects cognitive, emotional and social abilities and is considered the most severe of the 3 types of depression. Severe depressive disorder is a more advanced form of major depressive disorder so recovery may take longer.

Without treatment, depression can last longer, get worse and in extreme cases result in self-harm or even suicide.

#2 - The Biggie

Major Depressive Disorder is not self-inflicted, regardless of how you came to be depressed, be it through stress at work, a bad relationship, a dysfunctional family environment, a traumatic experience or the loss of a loved one. Depression is a mental health illness, also known as clinical depression, and is a chemical imbalance that affects the brain and moods in various ways. Depression is clinically diagnosed by a GP or a qualified medical professional such as a psychiatrist, and your treating medical professional will probably put you on medication to correct the imbalance as well as advise therapy sessions.

#3 - Mental = Physical

This is what most people don't realise, and it's huge! If you have read my story (Meet Sue Spence) you will have heard me describe the feeling of being hit by a freight train; I'm not joking there are times my entire body aches so much I can barely move it hurts so much! This is because depression is a debilitating condition to live with - yet is so unspoken about - that is not just going to affect you mentally, but physically (and financially) too. I will go into a lot more detail about this in an article about the symptoms of depression, symptom flare-ups and pain management.

#4 - You are not alone

You may feel totally alone out there, and that you are crazy, but you are neither. You are a beautiful human being who is going through a terrible time and needs all the support and encouragement you can get. It's actually quite scary how big a problem depression has become and, according to the World Health Organization, mental health disorders are 3 of the top 10 leading causes of disabilities in people aged 15 to 44 worldwide. So you see, major depressive disorder does not discriminate between race, gender, age or socio-economic standing. We are all in this together.

#5 - Support Structure

This is aimed at the family of the person with major depressive disorder. Please give them your unconditional love and support even if you don't fully understand what they are going through. It is hard enough to deal with the symptoms of depression but it is even harder to then be told that you are imagining it or it's all in your head, and not have support from those you love. I had the unfortunate experience of being told that everything will come right once I got better, as if I was the problem in a bad situation! So I know how tough it can be but I am lucky to also have a loving and supportive family who care and look after me, and now a fantastic husband who fulfils the role.

#6 - Treatment

As I said before, depression has to be diagnosed by a medical professional and treatment can include but is not limited to:

• Antidepressant medication on prescription - don't mess with it. I find if I miss just 1 day I am a ball of tears and a real grumpy person to be around, but on the meds, I'm the life of the party and everyone is playing catchup to me and I haven't even had a drink! As an aside, I actually haven't had a drink (a few sips of champagne at my wedding!) since before I was diagnosed as it's pretty heavy meds I'm on as it is! It may take a month or two to get the dosage right and find your balance, but you will and it is so worth it as you start feeling human again.

• Psychiatric sessions - to discuss progress in healing, insights into your condition, how you are coping and to prescribe meds. Psychiatrists are fully qualified specialist doctors so do cost a lot.

• Psychological sessions - this is a less expensive route to take than with a psychiatrist. Psychologists are not doctors and cannot prescribe meds (in which case, your GP would do that) and do not have the same expertise as psychiatrists but would run the sessions very similarly, This would be a more cost-effective route to take.

• Psychological Clinic - there are clinics that you can be admitted to for a week or two for in-depth therapy sessions. I personally don't know much about them as I have not been to one, so you would need to ask your medical professional for more information.

• Occupational Therapy - these sessions are to assess your ability to look after yourself, to return to work and to find practical ways to cope with the condition as well as to gain insights into it. There are programmes that the therapists use to assist with this. I have been doing a work readiness programme since March 2023: I'll post an article about that in due course.

There may be other treatments that I'm unaware of, but those are the main ones that you would encounter. The main thing to remember is that all treatment is aimed at helping you, so don't fight it, use it as best you can to help you feel better about yourself and to heal yourself. You will have good days and bad days, but the good will start outweighing the bad in no time.

#7 - Acceptance and Change

It is hard to accept that you have a mental health disorder such as depression but the sooner you accept the fact the sooner your recovery starts. Only with acceptance can you have self-awareness and gain insights into your condition to turn negatives into positives. I will go into more detail in a future article on how I have gained insights and how I use them to help heal, but it will only work for you if you have that acceptance.

#8 - Stress

I wish I could tell you that once you start your journey to recovery that your stress is over - unfortunately it's not. You need to find ways to manage and cope with stress as you cannot escape it. I will share insights and techniques that I have learnt along my journey such as how to detoxify your life. I'm still battling with this one, as it's not an overnight success story - I wish it was! It takes constant effort not to fall back into those bad old habits of mine that got me overworking myself thus opening the door to stress, and now, symptom flare-up.

#9 - Avoidance

This is the classic way we deal with our condition as it's the easiest way to cope: avoid it. Let's face it, it takes less energy to avoid something than to deal with it. Sometimes it's just too much to deal with at that particular time, to handle all at once, particularly social situations, so we avoid. I was even avoiding cooking just to not have to think what to cook, as in what to put together as a meal, let alone the actual task to cook it all, but I'm working on it. The easiest way for me to describe it is that we have a limited amount of energy, so we have to be careful what we use it on; everything takes us longer to do, feels harder to do, and tires us out more. Don't expect us to do what a normal person can do, it's just not going to happen. For me to even be doing this blog takes tremendous effort. After taking over an hour of typing out the text which I had already pre-written on paper, I was so disheartened to see the first post I did was going to take only 4 minutes to read! And I used to be such a good typist! (Not to mention my spelling and grammar but thanks to my sister who is an editor you won't see it! )

#10 - Relationships and Roles

By now I'm sure you will have noticed that some of your relationships may have changed: your friends and colleagues may view you in a different way. Also, your own roles as a parent, child, sibling, colleague, friend may have changed as you have possibly withdrawn from everyone. These and other changes that take place during your healing process don't need to be permanent and can be limited or even put back to what they were before. It's all about finding the balance in your life while healing yourself and with support, be it from family and/or friends or even other people in your life such as others healing with major depressive disorder and similar experiences as yours, you too can do what it takes.

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