Do People Really "Suffer" From Depression Or Are They Just Feeling Sorry For Themselves?

Question

I know someone who is on Social Security Disability because of depression.
Do you think that people that have depression are really sick?
Or are those diagnosed with this simply dealing with "self pity"?

Answer 1

yes depression is real
someone can not just say they are depressed it is an unbelievable feeling of pain
its not self pity
its more of their feeling of self worth

Answer 2

Most people with depression really are sick. There are a select few who use depression as a scape goat for thier behavior. Some people like the one who know may try to gain from thier diagnosis. I don't know the person who is on social securtity, but it sounds to me that you do not believe they are disabled by depression enough to recieve benifits. They may be true. Everyone who I have come into contact with who have mental illnesses are not on social security. There are a few who needed monitary help for a small period time while hospitalized or when receiving such intense treatment that work was not possible. But these individuals returned to work, school or some other productive life as soon as they could.

Depression is not a self pity thing. For many people is truly is a chemical imbalance in the brain. For others it may be due to a faulty thought process. If you were to talk to most people who are depressed or have dealt with depression I think you would find that very few of them are concerned at all about themselves. You would probably hear how they feel they have let so and so down, or how they think they could have done more to help such and such a person. At lot of people who are truly depressed have forgotten how to take care of themselves. Not only physically, like lacking the will power to get out of bed. But mentally, like taking at least ten minutes out of the day to be nice to themselves.

It is easy for me to sit there and write these words, but I know they can be very difficult to remember when you are depressed. Just like it would be very easy for you to think that depression really is just self pity, unless you are depressed and then you would have a totally different view. I have been dealing with depression for over ten years now. I can rattle off all the things that therapist or docs say to do about depression, but once you are caught in the spiral it is hard to see anything clearly.

I guess that the main thing to remember is tolerance, even if you do not believe a persons illness or agree with it.

Answer 3

Major depression, also called "Unipolar Disorder", is a very real disorder with clear guidelines for symptoms necessary to make the diagnosis per the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), currently in its 5th revision. There are also some very effective treatments for depressive disorders, both medication and non-medication treatments. Recently, Major Depression has been added as the third of the major, chronic mental illnesses, along with Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia.
There are degrees of depressive disorders, some that are seriously incapacitating to the person who suffers from the disorder. "Feeling sorry for yourself" cannot create the debilitating symptoms of a major depressive disorder. It is rather judgmental to see someone who is suffering from a depressive disorder as simply feeling self pity, especially given that most people with the disorder would do whatever it takes to NOT have the depressive disorder. Given, though, that there are effectve treatments for the disorder, it may be difficult to understand why the person who suffers from such an incapacitating illness will not just get up off their butts and go get treatment...but part of the disorder is an intense inability to appropriately care for oneself.

Given the difficulty of getting on Social Security Disability for even more serious chronic problems, the person you are writing about had to have gone through a lengthy and difficult process with a great number of clinical evaluations to determine that he/she really does have a major depressive disorder and that it is unlikel to go away for quite a while. People are routinely denied SSI upon their first application, even if they have much more debilitating disorders than a depressive disorders, so I am sure that this person has excellent documentation as to the extent of her disorder and the prognosis (expected outcome). The rates of suicked among those who suffer from depressive disorders are very high as well.

And, yes, as others have pointed out, depressive disorders do involve some problems with the "brain chemistry", the neurotransmitters that are involved in behavior, mood, etc. although we are just not sure what the specifics of the brain chemistry problems are, we are really clear that some medications that increase the availability and effectiveness of certain of the neurotransmitters help to alleviate the effects of depressive disorders.

Answer 4

Depression is for real. I have it and I have a bad case of it. I am major depressive, but i'm not like this for pitty. I do not get SSI from it. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. There may be some people out there who fake it for pitty, but if they do that then they obviously have some other mental problem.

Depression is a disorder that affects your thoughts, moods, feelings, behavior and even your physical health. People used to think it was "all in your head" and that if you really tried, you could "snap out of it" or just "get over it." But doctors now know that depression is not a weakness, and it's not something you can treat on your own. Depression is a medical disorder with a biological and chemical basis.

There is some information about it, please read it and don't go assuming that people who are depressed are faking it....please.

Answer 5

Context makes all the version. If it is from buddy-who's-no longer-traumatized/depressed to buddy-who-IS-traumatized/depressed and the 1st one has no understanding of the 2nd... no, doomed to failure. i think of a depressed individual (I even have been one) does could do issues that contain end feeling sorry for themselves, yet that's like Step 9 whilst they are on Step a million. i've got been depressed and that i've got had depressed acquaintances... There do come factors the place it is like, "ok, heavily dude, no heavily, you have have been given to end feeling sorry for your self and bypass do A, B and C." whether it is distinctive in case you all comprehend you already know one yet another, and you could have confidence the advice is pragmatic, and there is acknowledgment of precisely how lots a likely easy element could contain. With human beings it is like, they are not getting exhilaration from the sentiments or the obstacles, etc, so i might say fulfillment is uncommon, even nonetheless there is situations the place there is certainty to it.

Answer 6

Depression is a bonifide medical disorder. Recent studies of the brains of depressed patients have turned up 'scared' areas in the brain known to be responsible for feeling of depression. The scars, they believe, are made by the electrical impulses that trigger depression traveling down the same path of dendrites on their way to the part of the brain that causes the feeling.It's kind of like a river carving out it's path through rock. Negative feelings seem to damage the brain more that positive ones, these studies have shown. The studies are being carried out by the UCLA School of Medicine, Neruropsychology Dept.

Answer 7

Yes, definately. I was pregnant twice and became depressed the second time around. There were days when I didn't care to bathe, let alone clean the house. The only thing that I would do, was to take care of my first-born. However, I can say that he probably didn't get the kind of attention that he should have. I grew to have a very short temper, when I used to be a very calm, patient person. It was diffucult to concentrate, and I would find myself doing stupid things all the time that didn't make any sense- like making mistakes with our finances. I had panic attacks at least 3-4 times, until I learned to control them with breathing. Basically, I was not myself. I didn't care about anything that I used to. There was nothing to look forward to.

It's not about pitying yourself. It's more about self-loathing than anything. You don't want pity, believe me. You just want to not be a burden to anyone. Sometimes, I used to sit upstairs and cry while my husband was downstairs with our son. He had no idea, and I had no idea why I was crying. I didn't want to bother him with something I couldn't even explain. I just knew I wasn't happy. I finally talked to him about it 3-4 month in, and I explained it to him like this:

It's like I'm digging a hole, but I'm never getting anywhere. There's dirt all around me and no matter how hard or fast I dig, dirt keeps falling from above just enough to where I become one step behind where I was a minute earlier. Soon afterwards, I felt like I didn't care to shovel anymore. I'd rather stay in the hole alone until I'm buried.

There were times when I'd try to complete day to day tasks, and I'd start to feel normal again and then BLAM, a week later I'm back to being this other person, and I had no control over it. I wanted to give up because I was tired of being disappointed, and angry and embarassed with myself for not being able to fix it on my own.

I finally spoke with my OB/GYN, and she prescribed me Celexa, and boy, did that just make me worse. It heightened my symptoms to the point where I couldn't drive. I felt sort of woozy and paranoid at the same time. So I didn't continue to take that, especially after worrying over the baby. I didn't like the idea of taking meds while pregnant. I just rode it out until after she was born, and after moving across country (out of an isolated desert community) and getting back into a routine, I've been mostly fine ever since.

Answer 8

I used wonder the same thing until I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder. Depression and Anxiety are two disorders that perpetuate themselves. An anxious person may be anxious and not know what's causing, so they become more anxious and it just gets worse and worse. Likewise, a depressed person may be depressed and not know the cause either, and that causes the person to become even more depressed. These problems are extremely difficult to overcome, unlike a broken bone or laceration. Mental disorders are far more serious than physical ones.

Answer 9

Many people do suffer from depression. But, I completely understand where you are coming from with the question. There is a fine line in this day and time between clinical depression and actual depression. A lot of people do want a so called pity party and others really do have issues.

Answer 10

I know some people who are clinically depressed who don't feel sorry for themselves, they just hate how they feel and how it impacts their life! It is a real illness and some people have to live with it their whole lives. Of course there are varying degrees of it, like most illnesses. People who have self pity can feel better about themselves by simply changing how they view life; people with depression are powerless to change their thoughts by simply wishing the depression away.

Answer 11

The person on social security disability would have had to prove yhey are depressed beyond a shadow of a doubt SSD is very difficult to get