Manic Depression
By:NorthernStar
Northernstar@excapethematrix.com
Young Americans struggle with different illnesses every day, week, month and year including H.I.V/Aids, cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure. But an illness that young Americans fail to mention at times is manic depression, which is a mental illness opposed to an illness that harms a person physically. However; the illness can reach to a physical standpoint, but it can also be avoided. Every year, the population of the lengthy illness increases in America and it can destroy a person’s career, lack of education and most importantly, their personal life. Every illness has its background and events that produces it; therefore, there are several reasons why young Americans suffer from Manic Depression.
Manic depression is a disorder that affects a person’s body, encourages
their moods to swing, and thoughts to wander. It distress the ways a person eats
or sleeps, it gets to a person’s self-esteem, and the way a person thinks about
situations. Manic depression sums up the whole idea of the disorder, but
depression itself is divided into three different types. The first depression is
Dysthmia, which is not staid compared to the other two disorders, but if it gets
severe; it can develop into a serious illness. Bipolar depression is a disorder
that has serious combination of mood swings. A person can be happy one moment,
and start crying at the blink of an eye over something small. Mania is the
breaking point of the depression cycle
and
it significantly affects a person with bipolar because it takes over their sense
of thinking, judgments and collective activities that can become severe.
Depression is the lowest point in the disorder, and it affects the state of
mind. For example, my mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years
ago, and hers was bad to the point where she had to stop working. Everything
became so overwhelming for her that she felt like she could hurt someone or even
herself, that’s why she had to stop working. Her mood swings varied between
happy and angry frequently. The third disorder is major depression, which
combines symptoms that interrupts learning processes, the way a person study,
sleep, work and eat. Sometimes the disorder can lead to an episode where the
person feels immobilized, and it can occur several times throughout the victims’
lives.
Every illness has symptoms that comes along with it because if it didn’t; it wouldn’t be an illness. In most depressions, a person tends to get into a sad mood, hopelessness, the feeling of being guilty, and loss of interest in activities they used to love especially sports, sex, and any other extracurricular activities. Depression stems people to find themselves having less energy than they used to have, which my mother had numerous of problems with. She could barely bend over or pick up an object without feeling light-headed or nauseous. Americans start to find it difficult concentrating in school or remembering things and even making decisions, which I bet is hard because it could keep people from passing classes or tests. They tend to get thoughts of death or suicide, though most people don’t act out the thought; it is one of the most popular symptoms amongst depression victims. Victims who suffer from bipolar may get mania symptoms such as feeling like they don’t need to sleep, irritable over small issues, increased talking, racing thoughts and a high sex drive.
In some cases, depression runs within a family line most of the time that is the case with bipolar disorder. Studies of families report “members of each generation develop bipolar disorder found that those with the illness have a somewhat different genetic makeup than those who do not get ill.” Basically, it’s saying that not everyone with the same genetic makeup grow up to develop the illness. Other causes of bipolar can be pushed on to a person from pressure at work, dealing with the family, and school. For the case of major depression, it also holds the same family genetic makeup as bipolar disorder, but most researchers think it stems from changes of the brain structures and purposes. If the case isn’t brain structures or through heredity, it may have stemmed from “people who have low self-esteem, who consistently view themselves and the world with pessimism or who are readily overwhelmed by stress, are prone to depression.” It is studied that the mental changes in a human body can be brought on by the physical stimulations in the body as well, and that pushes illnesses against the body. Illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes produce the possibility of the person becoming depressed and wanting to give up because of new arrangements in their live they’re not used to. For example, my cousin had cancer and she became depressed after losing her baby due to the illness. She wasn’t interested in anything she used to like and she was angry for a long time until she realized all that some good things came out of it. Sometimes the death of a person or a strained relationship can stress someone out to the point they are depressed.
Depression occurs more twice as much in women than men, and the causes can be very severe. The factors that more than likely affect women are their menstrual cycle changes (periods), pregnancy (and after-birth), miscarriage (my cousin’s case along with her having cancer), menopause and postpartum period. Some women become very stress after taking on a lot of duties dealing with children, being a single mother, work, or even house-work. Some women become mentally “weak” after having a baby and they sometimes go into full-blown episodes that can be very dangerous. For example, Britney Spears is a popular singer who has given birth to two boys back to back. Alongside, after having the second child, she separated from her husband but then started having depressive episodes. First, cutting off all of her hair, then later that day checked herself into a rehab center. Then, she checked out a few hours later, checked in again and did the same procedure one more time then eventually stayed in there for month. During her third time going back into the rehab center, Britney lashed out on the paparazzi hitting them with an umbrella. Studies say that Britney was suffering from postpartum, I generally believe it was depression. Depression in men is less likely to happen than a woman, but it does affect over six million American men. It is mostly triggered by the usage of alcohol or drugs. But it’s actually extreme that suicide rates increase amongst men of the ages 70-85. I didn’t even know the elderly indulge in acts such as suicide. The symptoms in men are often displayed as them being extremely angry and unenthusiastic. Most men stay true to their pride that they wouldn’t even consider getting help because it would make them feel weak.
There are several ways victims can recover, which is by antidepressants or psychologists but they sometimes are not proven to really affect Americans with the illness. Manic depression can occur in anyone whether it’s a pregnant 20 year old woman or a retired 60 year old man, it exists everywhere and the causes are disturbing. Every illness has its background and events that produces it; therefore, there are several reasons why young Americans suffer from Manic Depression.
Work Cited
Cyranowski JM, Frank E, Young E, Shear MK. Adolescent onset of the gender difference in lifetime rates of major depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 2000; 57: 21-27.
Gallo JJ, Rabins PV. Depression without sadness: alternative presentations of depression in late life. American Family Physician, 1999; 60(3): 820-826.