A netizen with the ID “Zoufan” posted a Weibo in 2012: I have depression, so I’m going to die for a bit. There’s no important reason, so everyone don’t worry about me leaving. Goodbye.
Eight years later, this Weibo has over 1 million comments and 140,000 likes. Every day, there are still many fans joining in to leave comments.
The latest data from the World Health Organization shows that there are 350 million depression patients worldwide. In 2019, data showed that the lifetime prevalence of depression in China is 6.9%, estimated to have around 95 million patients.
This means that roughly 1 in every 15 people might be a depression patient. Around us, whether they are friends, colleagues, or family, there might be depression patients.
Under the question “What are the symptoms of depression?” on Zhihu (a Q&A platform), a highly upvoted response is a bitter self-narrative: Nobody thinks I’m sick, they just think I’m overthinking.
Many people think depression is just feeling unhappy after overthinking, but in reality, the opposite of depression is not happiness, but loss of vitality.
Psychologist Freud specifically differentiates between sadness and depression: Sadness is brief and fierce, while depression is slow and persistent, undermining a person’s vitality and causing them to lose interest in everything.
Depression is not simply feeling low emotionally, but a disease that deprives a person of their mental regulation mechanisms.
People with depression desire to love life more than anyone else, but depression seems like a heavy veil, enveloping them and draining their world of color.
Mild depression patients will experience prolonged feelings of extreme pain and despair, easily get fatigued, and lose interest in things they used to be interested in.
Moderate depression patients may perceive their brain functioning slowing down, actions becoming sluggish, feeling unable to face others, and experiencing impaired social interactions.
For severe depression patients, they may be unable to perceive emotions like happiness or anger, have severely delayed cognitive and motor functions, feel restrained in their movements like being bound, speak slowly, and have slow responses.
However, due to the societal and cultural norms in China where diseases are often equated with visible physical pain, the signs and symptoms of depression are often ignored by the patients themselves and mistaken by others as “hypochondria.”
Treatment of Depression
Medication Treatment
Currently, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the first choice for treating depression, such as Paroxetine, Sertraline, Escitalopram, Fluoxetine, Fluvoxamine, etc. However, these medications may have a mood-elevating effect, in such cases, Bupropion can be used as an alternative.
New Antidepressant – Hydrochloride Bupropion Tablets
Hydrochloride Bupropion Tablets are a new type of antidepressant that mainly has effects against depression, anxiety, and compulsions without the mood-elevating side effects, preventing the conversion of depressive symptoms into manic symptoms.
Psychotherapy
For depression episodes with apparent psychosocial factors, psychotherapy is often combined with medication treatment for enhanced effectiveness.
Physical Therapy
For patients with severe suicidal attempts or those resistant to antidepressant medication, physical treatment using ZY-09A type low-frequency alternating magnetic therapy machine, KF-10C ultra-low frequency transcranial magnetic stimulator and other physical devices is suitable for mild to moderate depression episodes.
For You Who are in Depression
Author Matt Haig, who successfully overcame depression, gave some advice in “Reasons to Stay Alive”:
1. Don’t feel guilty about doing nothing. Maybe working is more harmful to the world than doing nothing. Improve your idleness to be mindfully at ease.
2. Listen to a yoga instructor on YouTube, “Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”
3. Allow others to love you. Believe in this love. Live for them, even when you feel it’s meaningless.
4. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s okay. Some people will never truly understand things they haven’t experienced, but some will; be grateful to those who understand you.
5. Don’t worry about the time lost due to despair. After enduring despair, the value of time will double.
6. You hate yourself. That’s because you are sensitive. Probably everyone will find reasons to hate themselves if they thought as much as you do. In fact, we are all jerks, and we are all wonderful angels.
7. You feel everything will get worse, but this feeling is just a symptom.
8. Be brave, be strong, breathe, and live on. You will thank yourself today.
