Depression. Why we get depressed and differences with sadness

Being depressed is not being sad. We hear a lot regarding depression these days. Last Friday was World Day to Fight Depression and this Monday, known as Blue Monday or “the saddest Monday of the year.” With Christmas almost forgotten, several months ahead with hardly any holidays or vacations, winter and short, cold days, this week is perceived as one of those in which it is difficult to overcome. If we add to this that only in Spain more than two million people suffer from depression, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and that these figures have not stopped increasing since the pandemic, today we dedicate our blog entry to learning regarding some of the causes of this disease, from the professionals of the Ribera health group, and also the differences with sadness.

This weekend, Dr. Jorge Begazo, a psychiatrist at the Santo Domingo Clinic, linked to the Ribera Polusa hospital, explained that in recent years, at a social level, many changes have been undergoing that represent a significant challenge for our reality. An increasingly dizzying day to day, with barely enough time to assimilate changes, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its global consequences can affect, above all, “those people with difficulties in coping with certain frustration, few personal resources for register of emotions, little social or family support network or with a complicated type of work”.

How to distinguish depression and sadness

Lorena Cerezo, clinical psychologist at the Denia Health Department explains that the depression “It is a mental health condition that requires sadness to last over time – more than two weeks – and for other symptoms to appear such as the inability to enjoy, weight loss or gain, changes in sleep, fatigue or loss of energy , concentration difficulties, feelings of guilt and hopelessness or recurring thoughts of death.

The sadness, for her part, adds this same professional, “it is one of the basic emotions of the human being, necessary and adaptive”. “Feeling sadness is natural, since it allows you to express psychological, physical or emotional pain,” explains Lorena, and it appears in the face of losses and changes, which is why a multitude of daily life situations can generate this emotion, related to work, the family life, separations, deaths or illnesses, among others. And sadness can also affect our physical health in the form of pain, muscle tension, headaches or digestive symptoms.

But this professional from the Denia Health Department, which manages the Ribera health group, insists that in order for a depression, “it has been proven that the daily, work and social activities of the patient are indeed affected, there is marked difficulty in caring for oneself and others and there is a tendency towards isolation”. “Many times it is difficult to name what you are feeling, so asking for help is complicated,” he explains, while recalling that in the environment “they usually convey to them that they are no longer the same as before, as if they had been given to OFF and left without energy”.

Can sadness lead to depression?

Paula Marcos Carregal, a clinical psychologist at the Ribera Juan Cardona Hospital (Ferrol), agrees with her colleague from Denia. “The sadnessLike all other emotions, it becomes a mental health problem when it goes to the extreme of time and space, when it lasts for a long time and invades all areas of our lives, leaving us unable to enjoy things objectively. positive and that make us happy”.

Dr. Luis Fabian Mahecha, head of the Mental Health Service of the Vinalopó University Hospital, insists that depression “is a disease” and, as such, “the symptoms are more intense and limiting, they can interfere with all aspects of life, cause great incapacity to carry out daily activities and be recurrent, reaching a point at which they appear without apparent cause.” On the other hand, sadness, she recalls, “is a transient state of emotional discomfort, which is usually preceded by difficult life situations, and therefore, it is not considered a mental disorder.”

But attention. Like the two fellow clinical psychologists, Dr. Mahecha recalls that “there are cases in which sadness maintained over time can trigger depression.”

Dr. Helena Díaz Moreno, head of the Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology Service of the University Hospital of Torrejón, gives us some more clues to detect depression in a close person. “Depression is a serious psychopathological picture, which includes several symptoms. In addition to sadness, irritability, apathy, apathy, hopelessness, lack of sexual appetite, loss of appetite, feelings of little personal worth, a tendency to self-abandonment, frequent crying, among others, ”she says. And that is why he concludes: “Sadness, in high intensity, would only be a symptom of depression. Feeling sad and being depressed are NOT synonymous.”

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