What's the difference between mild depression and severe depression?
Depression occurs on a continuum, ranging from mild to severe levels; as it gets more severe, a person's daily life gets more paralyzed. Watch psychologist Ramani Durvasula, PhD, discuss why it's important to treat depression while it's still mild.
Transcript
As depression gets more and more severe, what we see is that its impact on day-to-day life becomes more severe to the point where the person can no longer work,
can no longer maintain relationships, and may not even really be able to take care of themselves anymore. [MUSIC PLAYING]
The one thing we want to remember about depression is that depression is an illness that occurs on a continuum ranging from milder levels
to very severe levels. One thing we see over that continuum as it gets more severe is how much more
the person's life is paralyzed. For example, a person with mild depression will probably report that they're
having trouble sleeping, that they're feeling sad, they don't get pleasure out of life that the way that they used to, that they're sort of pulling away
from their life a little bit, but they're still able perhaps to go to work, to take care of their kids, to take care of their homes, to be somewhat
present in their relationships. As depression gets more and more severe, what we see is that its impact on day-to-day life
becomes more severe to the point where the person can no longer work, can no longer maintain relationships, and may not even really be able to take care of themselves
anymore, for example, stop taking medications that they need to keep themselves healthy or even keep themselves alive. And so as depression gets more severe,
sometimes we even view it as getting more vegetative, meaning that the person really isn't even eating right anymore, they really aren't sleeping
or they're sleeping too much, and they simply can't take care of themselves or others so much so that they might even need far more severe intervention.
The one thing to keep in mind is that one great tool to remember is that to start treating depression when it's mild
can often keep it from becoming too severe. So what becomes key is that when a person is starting to feel depressed, they shouldn't just write it off
as having a bad day but to go and seek out the help and services that they need so this depression doesn't spiral into something that
really takes their life out of control. [AUDIO LOGO]
mental health behavior
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