Depression in women

Depression is a constant threat to women’s life cycle than men. And it is often a hidden or unrecognised health issues, particularly in a developing countries. According to health science, depression in women can be due to multiple reasons. It can be biological as in, teenage, vitamin D deficiency, reproductive cycle, menopausal or anemia. There are also social causes of depression in women, which may include discrimination at work, death of a loved one or a divorce.

Most of the time women tend to handle a depression in less productive way than men. This is mostly because of their hormonal issues which directly linked to female reproductive cycles. Most of the time these hormones which changes frequently and as a result brings behavioral and psychological changes in women. That also masks the real depression happening in their life to be unseen. On the contrary men unlike women lacks reproductive hormones such as progesterone, and therefore if depression happened in their life, it can be identified easily so that one can handle it as soon as possible.

What are the signs of depression in Women?

According to well established health and psychological studies there are some serious signs of depression that women should watch out. These are psychological signs and symptoms as well as physiological signs and symptoms. As far as physiological signs and symptoms of depression are concerned, they are mainly manifested as decrease in interests and daily activities. On the other hand, psychological signs and symptoms are manifested as depressed mood, feeling guilt or suicidal thoughts. Physiological signs and symptoms of depression includes: -decrease/increase in sleep, decrease/increase in appetite, or it can be increase/decrease weight.  So, these signs and symptoms should be watched out for carefully as they happened in women.  

Depression may affect women in a different way than it does affect men. When women are depressed, they feel helpless and try to hide themselves. To the contrary men try to express their depression in many different ways, including as mood irritability, agitation. Men try to seek help as soon as depression happened to them, though sometimes in a very negative way like using alcohol, sexual abuse of their partners etc. Women try to mask their depression by refusing not to eat, by isolating themselves, and also decrease or not at all in sexual desires.

However, it’s hard to hide severe depression but not just because you may live alone. When you live with someone, for example your family, even if they see that you don’t take care of yourself and look like you’re sick, it doesn’t matter. They only think that you’re just lazy and/or doing it for the attention. There are many households like this, especially in Africa. It is very common for teen girls living with severe depression while their family have no idea because they didn’t know or understand the symptoms of depression. Her mother or any close family member may constantly call them lazy and yelled at them. Such teens may end up to suicide.

What are the best ways for women to fight depression?

The first thing for a woman to do, as they observe a sign and symptoms of depression is may be to rule out that the cause of depression is not a medical. Therefore, they must go to medical Centre to get advice from a medical Psychiatrist or any medical practitioner. Depending on the type and level of depression there are medication treatment or psychotherapy treatment which are given by skilled specialists. Besides medication and psychotherapy what one can do to help themselves at home is to get back your normal activities. Doing exercise as well as trying to get back to normal social life activities are extremely important. Talking to friends, family members or any close peoples who you can count on and sharing your situations with them are also equally important to speed up the road to recovery.