It is inevitable that people will encounter frustrations, unpleasant events, and moments of unhappiness, bitterness and sadness, and even grief in their lives. So when you encounter these situations, is it depression?
The answer, of course, is no. As the name suggests, the main manifestation of depression is depressed mood, that is, low mood, but having a low mood does not necessarily mean depression. As the saying goes, “people are not grass, who can’t be without emotion”, people who suffer from adversity, aggression, unfortunate events or bad mental stimulation will naturally have unhappy emotions, but this may just be a normal emotional reaction, which is a normal human condition, and not always depression. So how to distinguish between normal depressive reactions and depression? Wu Zhiguo, Psychiatry Department, Shanghai Mental Health Center
Depressed mood refers to a pathological depressed mood, which is different from the normal depressed mood in many ways. First, the depressed mood is “disproportionate to its situation”, that is, the depressed mood is an amplified “depression”, and this “depression” is difficult to be explained by the objective reality of the situation, but mostly belongs to the “mediocrity”. Secondly, depression must be “significant and persistent”, “significant” means that the depressed mood is usually obvious to the person and/or others, and the degree can range from moping to sadness; “persistent” means that the depressed mood is usually obvious to the person and/or others, and the degree can range from moping to sadness. persistent” means that the depressed mood lasts for a certain period of time (e.g., more than two weeks). In contrast, most normal depressive reactions have a specific cause, and the melancholy generally fades over time as the situation changes, and even if it reappears later, it is often due to a change in mood. Of course, if the depressed mood with a cause lasts too long to meet the above-mentioned severity, then psychogenic depression should be considered as a possibility, which is also different from endogenous depression and will be discussed in the future.
Therefore, when you feel depressed and depressing, if you suspect that you are suffering from depression, please compare whether your low mood meets the above two important criteria for determining depression. In addition, depression has many other corresponding changes in psychology, physiology, thinking, cognition and behavior, which will not be discussed here.