But with time, you will feel better, especially if you get help. There are many people who want to support you during this difficult time, so please reach out! Depression often varies according to age and gender, with symptoms differing between men and women, or young people and older adults.
Depressed men are less likely to acknowledge feelings of self-loathing and hopelessness. Instead, they tend to complain about fatigue, irritability, sleep problems, and loss of interest in work and hobbies. Women are more likely to experience symptoms such as pronounced feelings of guilt, excessive sleeping, overeating, and weight gain.
Depression in women is also impacted by hormonal factors during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. In fact, postpartum depression affects up to 1 in 7 women following childbirth. Irritability, anger, and agitation are often the most noticeable symptoms in depressed teens —not sadness. They may also complain of headaches, stomachaches, or other physical pains. Older adults tend to complain more about the physical rather than the emotional signs and symptoms: things like fatigue, unexplained aches and pains, and memory problems.
They may also neglect their personal appearance and stop taking critical medications for their health. Depression comes in many shapes and forms. These are the most common types. More than simply feeling blue, the symptoms of mild depression can interfere with your daily life, robbing you of joy and motivation.
Those symptoms become amplified in moderate depression and can lead to a decline in confidence and self-esteem. More days than not, you feel mildly or moderately depressed, although you may have brief periods of normal mood. Major depression otherwise known as major depressive disorder is much less common than mild or moderate and is characterized by severe, relentless symptoms. Atypical depression is a common subtype of major depressive disorder with a specific symptom pattern.
It responds better to some therapies and medications than others, so identifying it can be helpful. For some people, the reduced daylight hours of winter lead to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder SAD.
SAD can make you feel like a completely different person to who you are in the summer: hopeless, sad, tense, or stressed, with no interest in friends or activities you normally love. SAD usually begins in fall or winter when the days become shorter and remains until the brighter days of spring.
While some illnesses have a specific medical cause, making treatment straightforward, depression is far more complicated. Certain medications, such as barbiturates, corticosteroids, benzodiazepines, opioid painkillers, and specific blood pressure medicine can trigger symptoms in some people—as can hypothyroidism an underactive thyroid gland.
But most commonly, depression is caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors that can vary wildly from one person to another. Despite what you may have seen in TV ads, read in newspaper articles, or maybe even heard from a doctor, depression is not just the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain, having too much or too little of any brain chemical that can be simply cured with medication.
Biological factors can certainly play a role in depression, including inflammation, hormonal changes, immune system suppression, abnormal activity in certain parts of the brain, nutritional deficiencies, and shrinking brain cells. But psychological and social factors—such as past trauma, substance abuse, loneliness, low self-esteem, and lifestyle choices—can also play an enormous part. Depression most often results from a combination of factors, rather than one single cause. For example, if you went through a divorce, were diagnosed with a serious medical condition, or lost your job, the stress could prompt you to start drinking more, which in turn could cause you to withdraw from family and friends.
Those factors combined could then trigger depression. Loneliness and isolation. Not only can lack of social support heighten your risk, but having depression can cause you to withdraw from others, exacerbating feelings of isolation. Having close friends or family to talk to can help you maintain perspective on your issues and avoid having to deal with problems alone. Marital or relationship problems. While a network of strong and supportive relationships can be crucial to good mental health, troubled, unhappy, or abusive relationships can have the opposite effect and increase your risk for depression.
Recent stressful life experiences. Major life changes, such as a bereavement, divorce, unemployment , or financial problems can often bring overwhelming levels of stress and increase your risk of developing depression.
Chronic illness or pain. Unmanaged pain or being diagnosed with a serious illness , such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes, can trigger feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Family history of depression.
Your lifestyle choices, relationships, and coping skills matter just as much as genetics. Whether your personality traits are inherited from your parents or the result of life experiences, they can impact your risk of depression.
For example, you may be at a greater risk if you tend to worry excessively , have a negative outlook on life, are highly self-critical, or suffer from low self-esteem. Early childhood trauma or abuse. Early life stresses such as childhood trauma, abuse, or bullying can make you more susceptible to a number of future health conditions, including depression.
Some people inherit genes that contribute to depression. But not everyone who has a family member with depression will develop it too. And many people with no family history of depression still get depressed. So genes are one factor, but they aren't the only reason for depression. Chemicals called neurotransmitters pronounced: nur-oh-TRANZ-mit-urs help send messages between nerve cells in the brain. Some neurotransmitters regulate mood. When a person is depressed, these neurotransmitters might be in low supply or not effective enough.
Genes and brain chemistry can be connected: Having the genes for depression may make a person more likely to have the neurotransmitter problem that is part of depression. Things like stress, using alcohol or drugs, and hormone changes also affect the brain's delicate chemistry and mood. Some health conditions may cause depression-like symptoms.
For example, hypothyroidism is known to cause a depressed mood in some people. Mono can drain a person's energy. When health conditions are diagnosed and treated by a doctor, the depression-like symptoms usually disappear. Getting enough sleep and regular exercise often has a positive effect on neurotransmitter activity and mood.
Daylight affects how the brain produces melatonin and serotonin. These neurotransmitters help regulate a person's sleep—wake cycles, energy, and mood. When there is less daylight, the brain produces more melatonin.
When there is more daylight, the brain makes more serotonin. Shorter days and longer hours of darkness in fall and winter may lead the body to have more melatonin and less serotonin. This imbalance is what creates the conditions for depression in some people — a condition known as seasonal affective disorder SAD.
Exposure to light can help improve mood for people affected by SAD. The death of a family member, friend, or pet sometimes goes beyond normal grief and leads to depression. World Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Association. What is electroconvulsive therapy ECT? Brain stimulation therapies. Updated June Greenstein L. Published Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind.
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Table of Contents View All. Table of Contents. Lived Experience. Will Treatment Help? Understanding Depression. Depression Statistics Everyone Should Know. TMS vs. ECT for Severe Depression. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles.
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