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Let’s talk about depression. I think more and more people are becoming aware of depression and its symptoms. It has become a more common topic of discussion. Disney made a movie called Inside Out highlighting the more depressive emotions of a young pre-teenager. We watch her struggle between emotions such as joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. This theme of emotions strikes true to our hearts. Our life can be a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes you feel like you should be happy and smiling with your kids but no matter what we do, we cannot shake the overwhelming feeling of being tired and sad.

These feelings are completely normal, but what happens when feelings of unhappiness, sadness, and even hopelessness happen more often than not? It’s probably time to talk about your depression symptoms. With depression, everyday tasks become chores. We can feel tired, down, or maybe irritable. We get this idea in our head that, “no I can’t be depressed, I have a great life”. But depression is not all about what we have and don’t have in our lives. Depression is an illness caused by a number of things. It can be triggered by traumatic events in our lives, medical conditions like brain changes, it can be genetic, or it can be the consequence of us living an unbalanced life. If left untreated the symptoms of depression can be devastating. I know people, both men and women, who kept these feelings of depression to themselves. They were afraid to burden their loved ones with their problems, felt like no one would understand, or worse yet, that no one cared about them. The fear of rejection or being misunderstood kept them from saying anything, but I can tell you that it is important to talk to someone. The sooner you seek help to resolve depression symptoms, the better. No one should ever believe they are a disappointment for your feelings. Depression can happen to men, women, and children. Men can fear being considered weak or weak-minded when talking about their depression symptoms. Women may fear being judged as overly emotional or lazy. Riley from Inside Out couldn’t keep her sadness inside any longer and although she was afraid her parents would be mad, finally decides to talk to her parents and says “you need me to be happy… please don’t be mad”. By detecting and diagnosing depression early many people can get their lives back on track. Unlike most people where depression symptoms occur once in their lives, others can experience depression for months to even years.  Treatments for depression by a trained and licensed professional (s) can include counseling, medication and/or a combination of these two.