This book is for the ‘Average Joe’ in this country who likes information given in an understandable way. You want it kept simple and you don’t need to read about all the technical stuff behind the subject. Depression happens to the average Joe all the time and most of us who have it don’t get treated for it. That’s a shame because depression is one of the most treatable diseases. I hope that if you understand it and know that it isn’t something to hide, cover up, or ignore, your can have the power to beat it.

At the very least, 30% of the American population suffer from a depression.  The economic cost is out of sight but the cost in suffering for those who are depressed can never really be counted. Depression can not only destroy persons suffering with it, but everyone around them who cares about them. A serious major depression can ruin a family if left untreated. This is really bad news! The good news is that there is quick treatment and relief available for depression sufferers.   However, the majority of people who get depressed do not get treated. We have now learned that depression is mostly due to a chemical imbalance or mix-up in the brain. These mix-ups can be treated with medications. The medications available now can help you save your life or that of someone you love. Depression is treatable, just like high blood pressure, diabetes, and an ulcer.  It is simply a matter of reaching out for help, getting the right medication, and following directions.  Think of this as like having a car that goes on the blink. You wouldn’t ignore trouble signs like an engine light flashing and think you could just keep on driving. You would investigate what was going on, get someone with training to check out your car, and fix whatever went wrong.  Same thing applies if you develop a temperature over 102, are dripping with sweat, and become weaker and weaker. You know something has to be done, and done quickly.  It is exactly the same when you experience depression.  Something is terribly wrong and you must act. I used to tell my new clients to think of themselves coming in to see me for a tune up, not a major overhaul. You won’t need the big overhaul if you take action quickly.

How do you know if you have depression?  There are some things that really stand out which can help you decide if a depression is going on.  It involves your mood, your thoughts, your appetite, your sleep, and your feelings of self esteem. It is not just the blahs or the blues. Everybody has a few days or more when they feel down and sad. This is different.  It’s not like the normal experience of sadness you have when things go wrong or when you are disappointed and hurt.  This is an emotional pit you’ve fallen into which affects your family, your job, and your whole life. It’s a horrible feeling of hopelessness, of failure, of knowing that there is no way to make things better. You actually do ‘drag’ yourself along, going through the motions at home and work, thinking that you would rather hide in a cave and avoid everyone.  If you are depressed you cannot just ‘get it together’, put a smiley face on, square your shoulders, and get a stiff upper lip. No matter how hard you try to lift yourself up, you can’t. And it tends to get worse, not better.  If you don’t get treatment, this can last for months or even years. Why put yourself through something this awful when the right medication can get you back on track, able to feel better quickly?

There are some facts that will help you agree that it is good to know about depression, understand the symptoms, and get the treatment which will help. Depression is not something that you have made up in your head. It’s feeling “down” and “low” and “hopeless” for months at a time.

Depression can affect people at any age, of any race, any ethnic, or any economic group. It doesn’t just happen to soft people and is truly an equal opportunity illness. It is not a form of weakness but is a serious health problem, like any other illness. It is not something which should be hidden or anything to be embarrassed about. The names of famous people who have suffered from depression like David Letterman, Mike Wallace, Terry Bradshaw, Wynona Ryder, Delta Burke, Tipper Gore, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and so many more tell us that celebrities who seem to have all the breaks have suffered with depression. Depression is a thief. It comes into your life, steals your energy and self esteem, and whispers to you that you are worthless. It shoves you down deeper into the bottom of the pit where no angels want to go. It can drive you to actually think about suicide, getting it over with, and ending the agony which has made your life pure hell.

This book is intended to help you understand depression by giving you information that you will be able to understand. You will not have to have a Ph.D. to get through these chapters and by the time you have finished, you will know a lot.  After reading this paragraph you won’t have to think about ‘genetic implications’ or such things as ‘human leukocyte antigen’. You may even surprise yourself with how much you have learned about depression and how to deal with it. I hope you will feel comfortable reading and rereading chapters that seem to have real meaning for you. You are the reason this book has been written.



By: John Samson

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Everyone knows what depression feels like. Everyone feels the blues at times. Sadness, disappointment, and fatigue are natural parts of life. There is a correlation between the blues and clinical depression, but the difference is like the difference between the sniffles and pneumonia.

Depressive disorders are whole person illnesses; they concern the body, feelings, thoughts, and behavior. The depression itself can make us feel as if it’s hopeless to try to find help. The excellent news is that 80 to 90 percent of people with depression can be treated successfully, but the bad news is that only one sufferer in three seeks treatment. More bad news is that almost half the American public see depression as a character defect, rather than an illness or emotional disorder. In addition, only half of all cases of depression are correctly diagnosed, and only half of those get satisfactory treatment.

We tend to confuse depression, sadness, and grief. But the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality - the ability to experience a full range of emotion, including happiness, excitement, sadness, and grief. Depression is not an emotion itself. It’s not sadness or grief, it’s an illness. When we feel at our worst, sad, self-absorbed, and helpless, we are experiencing what people with depression experience, but they don’t recover from those moods without help.

The trademark of depression is a unrelenting sad or empty mood, sometimes experienced as tension or anxiety. Life shortage of pleasure. People with minor depressions may go through the motions of eating, sex, work, or play, but the activities appear shallow; people with more severe depression withdraw from these activities, feeling too drained, tense, or hostile to contribute. There is often a nagging fatigue, a sense of being powerless to focus, a feeling of being ineffective.

People with depression usually experience a lowered self-esteem. In a depression, you may feel that you are a helpless victim of fate, but also feel that you don’t deserve any better. Feelings of guilt, dishonor, and misery are common.

There are often a host of physical symptoms, of which sleep disturbances are key. People may have difficulty falling asleep or may get up early without feeling refreshed. Others may sleep excessively, again without feeling rested. Appetite may increase or decrease. There may be difficulty in sexual functioning. There may be harassing aches and pains that don’t respond to medical treatment. But there are physical illnesses that cause symptoms like depression - Lyme depression, diabetes, thyroid conditions, anemia - and depressions can cause physical symptoms like other diseases.

If you are feeling depressed, it is important to be sure that an underlying health problem does not exist, and you should see your physician for a checkup. At the same time, if you know you have a health problem and are feeling depressed, don’t imagine you will feel better once the health problem is under control.

There is a sequential process in the recognition of depression. First is a stage of confused pain in which the sufferer knows he suffers, but doesn’t know why. People often blame circumstances. Adolescents blame their home lives, married people blame their spouses, and employees blame their bosses. But there is acknowledgment that the pain is not ordinary.

The second stage is recognition that something is definatley amiss. It may be that external circumstances have changed but the pain keeps on going, or it may be a gradual recognition that the suffering is so dangerous that circumstances can’t be blamed. This is a painful recognition that often takes years. It is an acknowledgment of a damaged self. But because of the nature of depression, the self-blame and guilt that are manifestations of the disease, this acceptance does not always lead to searching for help.

People then may move to the third stage, a crisis that habitually leads to professional intervention and diagnosis. It is often a ******* attempt or psychiatric hospitalization. The diagnosis often supplies hope, that treatment or a cure is possible, and explanation, a way to understand what has only been confusion before. The fact is that this is a diagnosis of a mental illness, with all the shame and stigma that that entails.

The fourth stage involves acceptance of an illness identity. Depression comes to be seen as an outside agent invading the self, rather than as a manifestation of the self.

It is essential that anyone suffering from depression gets good help from a competent, qualified professional. If the warning signs are obvious, always seek a professional diagnosis. Going to a health professional with your troubles could prove, at worse, embarrassing, if the problem is really just a seasonal case of the blues that can be dealt with without medical intervention, but the potential cost of failing to diagnose a serious case of depression should far outweigh any concern about potential embarrassment.



By: David B Smith

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Suffering A Stroke And Feeling Hopeless

Getting severely depressed after having a stroke is not unusual. When my mother had her first massive stroke and I went to the hospital, tears were flowing down her face and she kept telling me, ‘I don’t want to live’. My mother was always a very proud, independent woman.  She did not want to depend on anyone. She was depressed and very angry.  Nurses did not want to come into her room because she would not play the game and act grateful because she was unhappy. No one discussed depression with me, not her doctor, not her neurologist.  But I knew how bad it was. The depression had to be treated if my mother would ever get rehabilitated.

People who have a stroke need very much attention and love. They feel helpless and hopeless.  Recently a neighbor of mine had a stroke and when I went to the hospital, she too was crying and so sad. She is a widow who prides herself on being independent at age 86. The problem with her situation is that she was depressed for at least a year prior to the stroke since her husband had died. When the stroke hit her it was double trouble.

Treatment for depression can shorten the rehab process, lead to quicker recovery, and save health care costs.  It makes so much sense that it’s hard to believe that doctors don’t seem interested in explaining this to family members right up front. Depression is something that stroke victims deal with a large majority of the time. Even though stroke is a disease of the brain, it can affect the entire body. Some of the disabilities that can result from a stroke include paralysis, thinking problems, speech problems, emotional difficulties, fatigue, and daily living problems. Many people require psychological help after a stroke. Depression, anxiety, frustration and anger are common in stroke victims. It depends on the person and what his or her life has been like so far. If you know someone who has had a stroke, you know recovery is a slow and long lasting process.

If you or your loved one has a stroke, be prepared for damage to that person’s self image and self esteem.  It is very common for stroke victims to feel they have no future.  Make sure that anti depressants are part of the program for anyone you care about who has a stroke. Insist that the doctor find the right combination of meds. Maybe it will take some time but you and your loved ones are worth it. Depression can be treated in addition to whatever other illnesses a person might have, including stroke. If you think you may be depressed or know someone who is, don’t lose hope. Seek help

Depression and Parkinson’s Disease

It is very sad to know that at least half the people with this disease experience depression. First they are the victim of one horrible disease, and then they suffer from depression. The person who has it, their families, friends, and doctors so often misinterpret the warning signs of depression and just think it is part of the other disease.  Men in particular do not want to say that they are depressed as a result of this illness.

Symptoms of these two illnesses tend to overlap each other. Not enough research has been done on relationship between these two illnesses. People with depression who have Parkinson’s disease have a different symptom group than those without Parkinson’s. The Parkinson’s profile includes higher rates of anxiety and sadness without guilt or self-blame.

Parkinson’s disease is a chronic and progressive disorder of the brain. It affects the motor system, but also thinking and emotion. It results from the loss of brain cells that control movement. The four primary symptoms of Parkinson’s are:  trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; stiffness of arms and legs, slowness of movement, and poor balance and coordination. Plus it causes difficulty walking and talking.

Anything which can help these victims and lift their sprits is needed ASAP. Antidepressants can be extremely helpful for anyone dealing with Parkinson’s. Treating depression can help anyone feel better about and cope better with their illness.  Doctors of Parkinson’s patients need to devote the time and energy to finding the right prescription and right dosage. Be sure you insist that the doctor is “on it” and the help is given. As usual, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Don’t hesitate to demand the care you need.

Depression can and should be treated when it co-occurs with other illnesses. Untreated depression can delay recovery from it or worsen the outcome. If you or someone you love has Parkinson’s disease, don’t give up and don’t lose hope. Depression is a treatable disorder of the brain. Depression can be treated in addition to Parkinson’s. Get the help you need, even if you have to demand it.



By: John Samson

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