Difference Between Sadness And Clinical Depression

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What is depression? People can feel sad for a number of reason. For example, having a bad grade, losing a job, going through a bad breakup, or listening to music can bring sadness along. These are all good reasons to feel sad when something bad happens to people and they feel sad; that is normal. With depression it is different. The thing with depression is when nothing tragic happens and, yet for some reason, someone feels sad for absolutely no reason at all. People can wake up in the morning and, for some reason they do not feel happy or do not feel motivated to do anything. It gets to the point where they feel that everything is pointless. This type of feeling can last for days, weeks, months or even years. It gets to the point where it …show more content…

The meaning of sadness, according to the book called Depression 101, "Sadness is considered a normal, healthy emotional reaction to minor losses and disappointment (Preston & Kirk, 2010, p. 4)." Sadness can often be mixed up with clinical depression. Sadness is a natural part of our life and is temporary. Even though sadness is not the greatest feeling, it does not interrupt people's daily lives. With depression, there is a different meaning behind it. Depression is a serious mental illness or a disorder that can affect someone’s daily life negatively. With that, it comes with different symptoms. These symptom include: sleeping either too much or too little, gaining or losing weight, losing interest that someone once used to enjoy, self-harm, loss of energy, or having strong thoughts of suicide. People who are experiencing these symptoms often feel hopeless or overwhelmed to the point they have a trouble living a normal …show more content…

Most commonly, it can be caused either by life events or traumatic experience, personal issues, medications, or seasonal affect disorder. There is a point where everyone has dealt with stressful life events like dealing with the death of a loved one, losing a job, ending a bad relationship, or being stressed from school. Stress can have a major impact to depression. Traumatic experience can result from being victims of sexual or physical abuse as children. This can lead to depression or anxiety and affect their emotional or mental behavior later in their lifetime. Personal issues can go from dealing with low self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, or having anxiety. People having low-esteem and anxiety can bring risk factors to depression. Those who have depression can also have drug and alcohol problems. Most of the time, people will go to drugs or alcohol to relieve their stress, but it tends to get addictive and soon they will depend on it, which can sometime leads to overdoses or alcohol poisoning. Medications can also be one of the cause to depression. According to Harvard Health Publishing, "Sometimes, symptoms of depression or mania are a side effect of certain drugs, such as steroids or blood pressure medication ("What," 2017)". It is important to ask doctors what the risk may be for taking certain medications. Medications that may cause depression can be from antibiotics, heart and blood pressure drugs, hormones, or insomnia

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