Depression: Medical and mental

How can you tell when someone has depression? How do you treat depression?

Most people cannot answer these questions accurately.

Assumptions about depression have dangerous consquences. Researchers found in a 2004 American Psychological Association study that people associate depression with psychiatric symptoms, social skill deficit, physical appearance and labels like “crazy” and “psychotic.”

These labels surround mental illness with stigma and damaging misconceptions — the depressed person is being dramatic or refusing to help themselves. Depression is an illness, but unlike other illnesses, nearly one in four people in a 2006 Australian study felt that depression was a sign of personal weakness.

When people view their depression as a personal failure, and not as a medical condition, they do not seek the help they need. They will never get better, and their depression will push them to rash decisions.

But what role does education play in preventing this stigma? How do schools educate students about the importance of seeking help for mental illness? How do people learn what they “know” about depression?

Unfortunately, depression is not marked by a physical ailment. It isn’t identifiable by a cast, scar or broken bone. But that lack of a physical marker doesn’t make it less damaging to a person’s life.

Everyone with a depressive illness has a different experience. The most common symptoms include anxiousness, hopelessness or “emptiness,” as well as appetite loss and irritability — all feelings I have experienced.

In high school, I was an active and motivated student. I graduated in the top 10 percent of my high school class with a 3.8 GPA. I worked a near full-time job and easily balanced a heavy course load and a flourishing social life.

When I came to college, I knew I would meet new challenges, but struggling with mental health was not something I anticipated.

Around October of my freshman year at Pitt, I dealt with feelings of hopelessness, loneliness and purposelessness. I didn’t have the desire to get involved in campus life —  join clubs, go to class, make friends or even leave my dorm. I wasn’t my usual self, and it was hard for me to identify my emotions.

I felt like my friends and family looked at me as if I was broken. They didn’t know how to pull me out of bed or cheer me up. I felt like people thought I was being dramatic when I talked about my depression.

While I knew the sadness I was feeling was much more than loneliness and constant homesickness, friends urged me to “perk up” and to “stop having a bad attitude.”  Their reactions made it hard for me to realize that depression was an illness that I could treat, not just something that I had to hide or wait for time to fix.

Eventually, my depression forced me to leave school for a semester to seek medical treatment and give myself time to heal. I kept up academically through community college and remained active in my community. I surrounded myself with friends, coworkers and doctors who provided support through counseling and medication that helped me bring out my best qualities.

I am thankful I was eventually able to seek help. I finally feel happy to be myself again — something I thought I would never be able to regain. Others with depression shouldn’t be afraid to do the same.

I might have felt alone that year, but a 2011 study from the American College Health Association found that 30 percent of college students reported feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function” within the past year.

But depression extends beyond college. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly one in five adults in the United States suffers from a mental illness.

Though a significant number of people acknowledge that they have depression, few actually seek help. According to the Epidemiologic Catchment Area, less than 30 percent of people with psychiatric disorders seek treatment.

Though many people are reluctant to admit that they have depression and get treatment, there is a way to prevent the paralyzing self-hatred and self-doubt. People need to be aware of mental illness to avoid feelings of shame and guilt when confronted with it themselves.

We can prevent social stigma by beginning mental health education in elementary school. We could inform children before they begin puberty that mental illness, although not physical, is a medical condition that needs to be treated — not hidden or ignored.

Depression can be a debilitating illness, but nobody should feel as if they are a slave to its effects.

If you feel like you are struggling from depression or mental illness, seek help through the University Counseling Center by calling (412)-648-7930.

Write Bridget at blb98@pitt.edu.