I find women and depression can go hand in hand
Women are in fact at higher risk to develop depression than men because they often ruminate (think about an event over and over in their mind) more than men.
For those who are interested, I am currently in an abnormal psychology class and here are what we discussed as diagnosable criteria.
You must have 5 of the following symptoms and must have lasted for longer than 2 weeks:
- sad, down feeling nearly everyday
- loss of pleasure in normal daily activities (anhedonia)
- insomnia - either can' t initiate sleep or just stay in bed all day
- poor appetite with weight loss OR increased appetite with weight gain
- great fatigue
- feelings of worthlessness and guilt
- difficulty concentrating and being indecisive
- recurrent thoughts of suicide
the ruminating or over thinking of events seem to be a potential psychogical or cognitive cause but a lot of research has focused on neurochemisry
I myself feel like I do meet some of these criteria (more at different times than others) along with criteria for social phobia (criteria not listed but I could if people wanted) but it isn' t severe to the point that it significantly impairs my normal function.
My depression USED to be bad but isn' t as much. I actually think my playing video games worked as somewhat of a coping mechanism because it got my mind off things.
Drug treatment does work in some cases like using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (more prone to negative side effects)
I find all this stuff fascinating so I am somewhat rambling. This is a relatively good point to stop haha