Depression

            Depression can be a symptom, pertaining to when an individual "feels depressed", or it can be a sign, when an individual "observes" someone in a depressed state. Depression can also be a diagnosable disorder that affects millions of people around the world. Depression makes it hard for a person to lift their mood, to think and use cognition, to control certain bodily functions, and to curb their behaviors. Depression accounts for 60% of all suicides worldwide, and 15% of all the individuals who suffer from depressive mood disorders eventually take their own lives. If depression is ignored, a victim can be driven to suicide.
             Depression is a mental illness that holds no bias when it comes to claiming victims. It can affect anyone despite race, age, sex, or cultural background. The rate of depression has increased drastically in individuals born after World War II. Fifty years ago, depression was considered an illness that affected those between forty and sixty years of age. Yet, according to the National Institute of Mental health, the average onset of depression has declined to the mid-twenties. Although depression can affect men and women, it is twice as likely to afflict women. For men, "the likelihood of experiencing a major depression is 1 in 10. For women, it is 1 in 4." .
             Depression comes in different forms and affects people in different ways. The types that receive the most attention from medical establishments are, Major unipolar depression, Major endogenous depression, Bipolar disorder (manic depression), and dysthemia (minor depression). Major Unipolar depression leaves an individual lethargic, and filled with an overwhelming sense of despair for at least eighteen months. Endogenous depression deals with insomnia, lethargy, slowing of mental and physical activity, and occurs most frequently in people with a family history of depression. In Bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, an individual goes from one state of manic frenzied activity to a state of manic despair where they become immobilized and debilitated.