Healthy Living looks at depression
At some point you have experienced feelings of sadness. Most of the time we learn to overcome these feelings and as some say: what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But when a person suffers from depression their gloom and despair become debilitating, preventing them from experiencing happiness. As part of Mental Health Week, Healthy Living takes a look at depression.
Jennifer Lovell, President of Mental Health Association
“Bottom line, people do not need to live like this. They do not need to live in the silence and the pain of depression.”
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting
Jennifer Lovell is more widely known as the bubbly judge on ”Duets”, but Jenny has been a practicing mental health professional for over the last twenty years. With a masters degree in counseling and mental health and as a licensed drug and alcohol specialist, she is the president of the mental health association in Belize.
Jennifer Lovell
“Depression is not the blues. Depression is a persistent, ongoing feeling of overwhelming sadness. It’s an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness like there’s no way out of this.”
When these intense sad feelings prolong for a period extending beyond two weeks then it may be a case of clinical depression.
Jennifer Lovell
“If you have someone who has lost interest in things they use to enjoy before. They are no longer interested in the things that gave them enjoyment. It’s continuous.”
Similarly, some experience difficulty concentrating, constantly feeling tired, persistent sadness: feeling empty, either sleeping a lot more than usual or having trouble falling or staying asleep, either a loss of appetite or on the flip side overeating, irritability and thoughts of suicide. Persons with depression may even experience unexplainable aches and pains like headaches, muscle aches and joint pains, or stomach and digestive pains. These physical symptoms are typically treated with regular medication but return because the root cause, depression, is not addressed.
Leah Dawson is a mother and a wife. She was diagnosed with depression eight years ago. She experienced most of the symptoms that characterize depression.
Leah Dawson, Diagnosed with Chronic Depression, 8 Years
“I couldn’t understand why. My family couldn’t understood why. My husband did not understood why. They knew something was wrong with me. They thought maybe my attitude had changed or a mood problem, getting moody. But it was much more than that. You start to feel, you start to lose interest in life. That’s the main thing. You got the things dat you love but all of a sudden you don’t love them anymore. You don’t have no interest in doing nothing; No interest in nothing and even the people that you love and that love you; you don’t want to be with them.”
Leah’s depression actually started after the birth of her only child ten years ago. She describes how she felt.
Leah Dawson
“You’re mood changes like feeling sad for no reason, crying a lot for no reason. You become irritable for no reason too. That feeling the doctor explained was going to go away in few days, that that’s normal when you have a baby, you go through the baby blues they say. So I expected a little bit of change in my mood but not to that extent. Then it got worse and none of us knew what was happening.”
She has been diagnosed with chronic depression. This type of depression is based on a chemical imbalance in her brain. It is treatable with medication. But not all forms of depression require medication.
Jennifer Lovell
“You can do talk therapy. Sometimes talk therapy isn’t enough for it, if something really clinical and has been chronic and ongoing you may need medication.”
One of the places that persons can seek out assistance is at the Community Counseling Center. It is a government run institution located on Freetown road. It offers services by volunteer counselors and licensed psychologist as well as an in-house counselor. Similarly, all health clinics countrywide are equipped with mental health clinics with a psychiatric nurse practitioner on hand. One such nurse is Nurse Eleanor Bennett, she is the psychiatric nurse at the Cleopatra White Health Center.
Eleanor Bennett, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Cleopatra White Health Center
“Normally, they would come for the first visit and when they find out it’s a psychiatric clinic that they’re referred to or the mental health clinic that they’re referred to they would not come back. A lot of people, once they receive the first episode or first treatment would not return for follow up visits.”
According to Nurse Bennett, this habit can lead to a worsening of the situation.
Nurse Eleanor Bennett
“If you have had one incident or episode of episode depression that you have a fifty percent chance of getting another episode and if you have had two then you have a seventy-five percent chance and if you had three well then its ninety to ninety-five percent.”
And not treating depression may lead to even graver consequences like suicide. Dawson, having lived through two major depression episodes emphasizes the need for family support.
Leah Dawson
“The family needs to make that their responsibility to help a person. If somebody feels like they had the symptoms I had or they’re going through that or some loved one is going though that make that your responsibility to help them”
Nurse Eleanor Bennett
“I think that what we needs family to understand is that depression is real. It is a real disease and it’s a disease that responds well to treatment and a disease that needs patience because the treatment itself is, it takes a little while.”
Even friends and co-workers can take an active interest. There are some people who can carry on a normal and functional life but when alone retreat into a depressive state.
Jennifer Lovell
“But these people leave work and they go home and these are the folks who go home and they have their curtains drawn. It’s like living in a bat cage almost. And they don’t have the energy left to cook, they don’t have the energy to really take care of their kids and they go and isolate in their rooms and go to bed and hopefully there is someone else in the home who is able to take care of the children if they have children. These are the people who I wanna appeal to that you deserve a whole lot more than that.”
The most important thing to remember is that Depression is treatable. Medications and psychotherapy are accessible in Belize. There is no reason why anyone should be suffering in silence when there are treatments and persons who can help.
