Depression is a serious illness where a person will feel incredibly sad and has a bad reflection about his own functioning in society. They feel that nothing is important anymore and that they can not change their sadness anymore. Eventually if the depression is severe enough someone could try to kill themselves. The problem with depression patients is that most patients will not recognize that they are depressed and that is why family members should be fully aware of what the symptoms of a depression are.
We should also make a differentiation within types of depression as there are many. When you think about depression you probably think about a primary major depression where a person feels very sad and doesn’t want to do anything. But another type of depression is called bipolar depression which is the same as manic depressive disorder. When you have a bipolar depression you have mood changes which could be changing from very sad to feeling incredibly good. The very sad feeling is the same feeling as seen in patients with primary depression but the manic episodes are a different thing. When a person has a manic episode he feels great and he believes he could conquer the world. Some people believe they are on a mission to save the world or to enlighten people because they are godlike themselves. Although this might sound a bit weird and maybe even funny, it is a dead serious problem because people are not behaving rational anymore. They could stop eating and sleeping because they feel great so why should they sleep and eat? They could also get in to fights and hitting on other women when they are married because they have no true control over themselves.
There is a difference between bipolar disorder 1 and 2. The main difference between them is that patients with bipolar disorder 1 are suffering from depressive episodes with manic states and patients with bipolar 2 have depressive episodes with hypo manic states. The difference between manic and hypo manic is that a hypo manic person does not have a full blown mania and is till functioning properly in society. Another not frequently seen diagnosis is the atypical bipolar disorder which is not a disorder on itself but happens when the person does not fit either a bipolar 1 or 2.
It is important to understand and recognize the difference because each type will have it’s own treatment guidelines. If you have any more questions than please ask your doctor for advice.