While people often use the word “depressed” to describe feeling temporarily bummed out or sad, depression is a serious and diagnosable mood disorder. Depression can cause overwhelming and lasting feelings of sadness, hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness. This health condition can range anywhere between mild and severe. While everyone has bad days, if your symptoms and low feelings last for multiple days or weeks or impact your job or relationships, you might have clinical depression. Fortunately, all depressive disorders are treatable, and with the right support, individuals can live healthy, happy lives. Our depression treatment program understands the complexities of depression.
At Oceanfront Recovery, we want to ensure that your recovery process encompasses both your addiction and depression. With this in mind, we tailor your addiction treatment programs to address your specific individual needs. Call us at (877) 296-7477 for more information about our mental health treatment programs.
What Is Depression?
Depressive disorders can take on a lot of different forms. Clinical depression is the most severe and persistent form of depression. Individuals may struggle with seasonal depression or a seasonal affective disorder, where due to a lack of natural light (among other things), an individual has a persistently low mood. Women frequently struggle with post-partum depression, a severe mood disorder experienced after childbirth.
When doctors diagnose depression, they look for the following symptoms:
- Feeling depressed most of the time
- Feelings of tiredness or lack of energy
- Feeling guilty, worthless, or hopeless
- Difficulty staying focused, making decisions, or remembering details
- Too much or too little sleep
- Weight loss or gain
- Appetite changes
- Little to no interest in activities you used to enjoy
- Thoughts of suicide or death
- Feelings of restlessness and irritability
If you are experiencing five or more of the above symptoms and have been for two weeks or longer, you have the definition of clinical depression.
Depression can also manifest itself through physical symptoms, including back or joint pain, headaches, digestive issues, and even sluggish speech and movement. This is because serotonin and norepinephrine, the brain chemicals linked to depression, affect both pain and mood.