A Monster Within
Imagine being in a dark room scared and alone with nothing but your thoughts taunting you. Unless there’s a door in clear view, you have no way out. Unfortunately for millions of Americans, this is the reality for them. This darkness is called depression. Sufferers of depression are exposed to some shade of darkness and as much as they try to escape from the darkness, it seems impossible. It’s like you’re running and you know where you want to go but instead of getting there the easiest way possible, you have to go up a mountain, down a hill, through tunnels and then back up a hill to get to your destination. The trek to happiness is harder than it seems for people suffering with depression. Since the 1950’s, treatment has …show more content…
Emil Kraepelin. He believed that depression was a form of schizophrenia. Among depression, he also studied the effects of alcohol on the brain, dementia, manic-depression, and endogenous psychosis, the link between personality disorders and the brain (Science Museum of London, 2013). During the latter part of the Age of Enlightenment, depression made a broad appearance and took doctors by surprise. Before the Age of Enlightenment, depression was called “melancholia” and was considered to be a demonic possession. Thought to be the work of the devil, many sufferers with this condition relied solely on religion and the priest to “pray the demons away,” but for others they were put through cruel and unusual remedies to try to cure it. Both treatments were unsuccessful for the most part. At this point in time genetics weren’t necessarily thought of to be the cause of this illness so the treatment plan was inhumane. Water immersion, putting the patient under water to the point of drowning, enemas, and vomiting were few of the many methods they used to try to cure depression (Delano …show more content…
You suddenly become the 1 in 4 if you’re a woman and if you’re a man, you become the 1 in 10. Depression can be caused by mostly anything, not just a chemical imbalance in the brain. Like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic event such as the loss of a loved one can easily trigger chemical levels to decrease. The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) states that 60% of men and 50% of women will suffer from PTSD. More likely in people who have been exposed to an accident, abused as a child, have any type of mental disorder, have an addiction, or who are even younger the most common cause of PTSD is war. Each year thousands of men and women travel across the sea to fight for our country and are exposed to multiple scenes that we as normal citizens could never imagine to witness. These men and women suffer a great deal for our freedom and safety and of the 300,000 that are diagnosed with PTSD, 60,000 of them commit suicide. It just shows how much of a silent killer conditions like PTSD can be. Often, events such as these can lead to chronic depression- depression lasting more than 5 years. In “Discovering Psychology” by Hockenbury and Hockenbury, it is said that by the end of our lifetime, we will have gone through one depressive episode and when on our deathbed, we will go through another. This final state of depression is an acceptance that the pain will be over rather than the initial
Imagine being in a dark room scared and alone with nothing but your thoughts taunting you. Unless there’s a door in clear view, you have no way out. Unfortunately for millions of Americans, this is the reality for them. This darkness is called depression. Sufferers of depression are exposed to some shade of darkness and as much as they try to escape from the darkness, it seems impossible. It’s like you’re running and you know where you want to go but instead of getting there the easiest way possible, you have to go up a mountain, down a hill, through tunnels and then back up a hill to get to your destination. The trek to happiness is harder than it seems for people suffering with depression. Since the 1950’s, treatment has …show more content…
Emil Kraepelin. He believed that depression was a form of schizophrenia. Among depression, he also studied the effects of alcohol on the brain, dementia, manic-depression, and endogenous psychosis, the link between personality disorders and the brain (Science Museum of London, 2013). During the latter part of the Age of Enlightenment, depression made a broad appearance and took doctors by surprise. Before the Age of Enlightenment, depression was called “melancholia” and was considered to be a demonic possession. Thought to be the work of the devil, many sufferers with this condition relied solely on religion and the priest to “pray the demons away,” but for others they were put through cruel and unusual remedies to try to cure it. Both treatments were unsuccessful for the most part. At this point in time genetics weren’t necessarily thought of to be the cause of this illness so the treatment plan was inhumane. Water immersion, putting the patient under water to the point of drowning, enemas, and vomiting were few of the many methods they used to try to cure depression (Delano …show more content…
You suddenly become the 1 in 4 if you’re a woman and if you’re a man, you become the 1 in 10. Depression can be caused by mostly anything, not just a chemical imbalance in the brain. Like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic event such as the loss of a loved one can easily trigger chemical levels to decrease. The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) states that 60% of men and 50% of women will suffer from PTSD. More likely in people who have been exposed to an accident, abused as a child, have any type of mental disorder, have an addiction, or who are even younger the most common cause of PTSD is war. Each year thousands of men and women travel across the sea to fight for our country and are exposed to multiple scenes that we as normal citizens could never imagine to witness. These men and women suffer a great deal for our freedom and safety and of the 300,000 that are diagnosed with PTSD, 60,000 of them commit suicide. It just shows how much of a silent killer conditions like PTSD can be. Often, events such as these can lead to chronic depression- depression lasting more than 5 years. In “Discovering Psychology” by Hockenbury and Hockenbury, it is said that by the end of our lifetime, we will have gone through one depressive episode and when on our deathbed, we will go through another. This final state of depression is an acceptance that the pain will be over rather than the initial