This may be due to the fact that it is more socially acceptable for women to express emotions in women or that some genetic connection makes those with female chromosomes more likely to suffer from the disease. It is also hypothesized that other problems, such as alcoholism and addictions, mask men's depression. 1)
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of disability and incapacity worldwide and is also the most common mental disorder. 2)
One in ten patients presenting to their primary care physician for other ailments has full-blown depression, and a second as many suffer from isolated depressive symptoms. Unfortunately, more than half of these cases remain undiagnosed, and of those diagnosed with depression, only half receive adequate treatment. 3)
Depression is an illness that can and should be treated, and depression symptoms can be both recurrent and chronic. 4)
Symptoms of depression include a gradual loss of enjoyment of life and feeling of pleasure, the ability to enjoy things and events previously experienced as joyful until they disappear entirely (anhedonia). Decrease in mood and ruminations, combined with indifference (“I'm all the same with what is happening and what will happen”), a sense of emptiness. Sometimes volatile (labile), irritable mood, difficulty in controlling mood and sadness (having a deep and penetrating character, experienced most of the time), crying, which is increasingly difficult to control, and sometimes the inability to control one's own emotions, impulsiveness inconsistent with previous behavior. 5)
Depressive thinking is a pessimistic assessment of one's past, present, and future, loss of self-esteem, lowered self-esteem, a sense of being worthless, and unnecessary. 6)
Although anxiety is not a typical symptom of depression, it very often accompanies it. Although the patient has a sense of constant anxiety, it is difficult to determine what specific thing he is afraid of (indeterminate anxiety). Anxiety is often chronic, its intensity gradually increases and decreases (slow-flow anxiety), and is often located by the patient somewhere in the center of the body, for example, in the chest. 7)
Sleep disorders in depression are often manifested by difficulty falling asleep and maintaining sleep, sleep is often shallow, and intermittent. Also characteristic of depression is frequent waking in the morning hours (3:00-5:00 am) with the ability to fall back asleep with less severe depression, or the inability to fall back asleep in people with severe depression. Sleep disorders in cases of depression can also occur in the form of excessive sleepiness both at night and during the day. It is then difficult to awaken from night sleep, with patients claiming to “sleep all night and all day” with short breaks. 8)