The Truth About Postpartum Depression

Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields are currently engaging in a word war against each other because of a type of depression, called postpartum depression. Cruise's and Brooke's debacle started when Tom Cruise openly disapproved of Brooke Shield's personal choice of opting to take prescribed medicines to cure her postpartum depression, when he guested at the Today Show. According to Cruise, who is a popular devotee of Scientology (who believes that we can be cured through natural means and that taking medicine is doing our body harm), Brooke Shields should have instead, opted to cure her postpartum depression by doing healthy exercises. Adding that a lot of people have been misinformed about depression and how to actually cure this common illness.

But what is postpartum depression really? We've heard about it often enough, yet are we really sure that we know enough about it for us to actually understand this illness in order for us to help ourselves as well as others? Being pregnant should really be a source of joy for everyone, especially the mother to be, who for nine months, will actually have living being grow from inside of her. Unfortunately, there is another side to this joyous occasion, being pregnant means that you and your body will have to get used to some adjustments for you to have a safe pregnancy. Smoking, alcohol, strenuous activities as well as stress should be avoided at all cost. A healthy baby means having a healthy mother as well. But given that you have been able to successfully avoided all these bad habits for your baby to be, childbirth is a whole different thing, as much as we may try to avoid it, there are still some unfortunate cases wherein the mother's as well as the baby's life might be in danger.

But there's actually more, postpartum depression actually happens after childbirth. Although it's quite common and a lot of women have learned to how to deal with it as well as successfully treat it (like Brooke Shields), it is still quite avoidable. Postpartum depression is actually a lot like depression, but only new moms are the possible victims of this illness. There are actually a lot possible reasons why postpartum depression occurs:

Childbirth as we all know is not as easy as pie, actual physical stress from giving birth is one of the main reasons why postpartum depression occurs. Next postpartum depression trigger is massive changes is hormonal levels. A lot of moms-to-be who were hesitant about bearing a child are also more susceptible to postpartum depression, those who are not ready to be a mother yet are more easily to get depressed as opposed to happy and excited moms-to-be.

When postpartum depression happens, it really is best to go to the doctor immediately. Aside from obviously having ill-effects for the new mother, postpartum depression can prove to be harmful to the child as well. New mothers who are suffering from postpartum depression may be harboring ill feelings toward their children. Their are actually some cases of murder wherein postpartum depression has been cited as the reason. Mothers who suffer from postpartum depression may blame their child for their weight gain, thus feeling like they've become less attractive and unloved. It is really best to consult a reputable cognitive behavior therapist to take care of your postpartum woes, your therapist may prescribe medications to help cure postpartum depression as well as therapy sessions to help relieve whatever pent emotions that you may have.

Teen Depression Can Lead to Self-Harm and Mutilation

Are you aware if your teen purposely injures herself? Teen depression or anxiety can trigger this response to stress, and you might not even know about it.

Self-harm is difficult to imagine, but some teens who are have depression or anxiety disorder use it as a way to release painful emotions.

If your teen is injuring herself, it's imperative that you seek help. Here is some background on self-injury.

It mostly affects women between the ages of 13 and 30, but men are also likely to react this way to painful depression and anxiety. They will use any object they can find to inflict pain on themselves. This includes cutting with razors, scissors, broken glass, pieces of sharp metal, needles or whatever else they can find.

A sure sign that your teen is injuring herself is any repeated cuts on her arms, legs, hands, wrists and elsewhere. Some injuries are minor and heal quickly, while others can be severe enough to cause permanent scarring and possibly require medical treatment.

While the majority of people who self-harm are not suicidal, there are some who are, so this should not be ruled out.

The big question is why do they take such drastic action against themselves?

Disruptive family life, trauma and sexual abuse are some of the more common reasons why teens self-harm. It is their way of relieving the anger and inner turmoil that results from these disruptions. While it might appear to be a method to gain attention, cutting is actually something that teens do in private, away from view.

In fact, unless you happen to see your teen with her arms or legs exposed, chances are you will never know that she has injured herself repeatedly.

Any negative emotions can trigger the self-harm, which makes it that much more difficult to pin down. One such emotion is the idea that she needs to punish herself for guilt that she feels. Other possible causes include bipolar disorder, obsessive thinking, eating disorders, and aggressive behavior.

Cutting offers a distraction from the real pain that's going on inside her. Emotional pain can be much more unbearable than a few cuts. In fact, cutting provides a sense of relief, although temporary.

Resolving the self harm means getting to the root of the problem that is causing the emotional pain. If the teen has suffered sexual abuse or is having difficulty coping with chaos in the family, these issues must be addressed by a doctor or other medical professional.

If your teen is experiencing unbearable anxiety, which can come from any number of sources including school and peer pressure, this too much be treated to prevent more serious problems arising in the future.

Cutting is a sure sign that your teen has not learned how to deal with various life experiences and the stress they bring. It is important for your teen to learn good coping skills so that this problem does not repeat itself.

What you can do

Teaching your teen alternative ways of coping is imperative because once she starts cutting, it becomes almost addictive and extremely difficult for her to break the habit.

Seek professional help as soon as you realize there is a problem. Find someone who will help her to establish a more positive attitude about herself and her options. Do whatever you can to help build her confidence and self esteem. Offer your support. Open the door for non-judgmental communication where she can share her concerns. Talk therapy is an extremely beneficial coping mechanism.

It's important to stay positive about the healing process. Some teens will recover quickly, while others will take longer. Although you might not see results on the outside, you can be sure something good is happening on the inside.

Discover the underlying causes that trigger teen depression. Sylvia's new ebook, "Understanding Adolescence: A Guide to Teenage Depression & Suicide" fills in the details, including the biological changes teens experience as they transition between childhood and adulthood. Get more anxiety relief and depression help.

There Is A Natural Remedy For Depression

If you've ever been fighting depression, how often has a chum or co-worker told you to snap out of it and thought they were clearing up the problem. Well depression isn't like that. It's a very rooted problem that won't be cured overnite with some straightforward recommendation from somebody that's not working with your real feelings. But that's to point out that an answer to depression can be improved with the way that you think and live your everyday life. Positive Thinking Negative thinking can play such an overpowering feeling in being depressed. One of the natural cure for depression is positive thought. I know from private experiences that destructive thoughts can be tricky to shake off. They're often consistently there in your intellect causing me to feel depressed. And you can not sleep because you are depressed. When you can't sleep you get exhausted.

Exhausted and depressed. Worse, it's a dangerous cycle to be in.

Everything that occurs during your day becomes depressing and you look for the negatives of everything around you. It is virtually impossible to see any of the positives. Medicine might be the answer for someone that's diagnosed as having say, a chemical disparity, but the power of thought can be terribly robust if you practice positive thinking. You want to inform yourself to have less bad days and more of the coolest ones. Positive thought is a particularly forceful natural treatment for depression. Try this. The very first thing that you consider when you wake in the morning and your last thoughts when you head off to bed at night should be about all the good stuff that have occurred to you this day and each other.

If it helps maybey write down all these things and keep a copy beside your bed to use as a reminder. Keep adding to it when something positive happens to you. We often forget what we already have and become extremely ungrateful. Giving gratitude to what we already have is a good way the think positively and it's a good natural treatment for depression. Exercise begin to exercise, even if it's a casual walk. Exercise could be a great natural cure for depression. The sole disadvantage is that when you're in a state of depression you do not feel just like you've got the energy to exercise.

You have to bump yourself and though it is going to be tough to start, once you start you may find the energy. The more energetic the exercise the better you'll feel. Diet Ultimately, eat the best food you will find. Dispose of the junk food and preprocessed food. Have a good diet including a lot of fruit and veg. You may be extremely shocked at how much better you may feel in a short space of time and how much more energy you'll have.

Warning Signs Of Adolescent Depression

Issues like depression may affect the standard of living for your teen, and may even affect their physical health. If you believe that your teen might be depressed, look for the signs described in this piece. It is perfectly normal for a teenager to remain up late and to need to sleep in well into the following day.

This isn't an angle problem, but a rewiring of their brains that drives them to these'abnormal' hours. They'll return to'normal' as time goes on. What's not ordinary is a teenager that sleeps all of the time, heading off to bed early, sleeping late, and retiring for snoozes. While these might be indications of other issues, they may also be indications of depression. Absence of energy - Notwithstanding all that additional sleep, does your teen still appear fatigued or tired a lot of the time? Low energy and tons of sleep might be signals of a difficulty with the thyroid, it may be another thing altogether, or it might be an example of an indication of depression.

If your teen is not inquisitive about stuff like keeping in communication with their mates or in playing the newest Playstation games, whatever he used to be happy about, then it might be cause for concern.

They could also indicate problems like an eating disorder, and so should be regarded seriously irrespective of what the circumstances. Irritation - although it can be tough to say if your teenager is grouchy generally or simply snappy with you as an authority figure, it's good to notice that inappropriate irritation may be an indication of depression. A dour outlook - If your kid is all of a sudden chatting in the negative or talking about suicide, chalking it to'mood swings' could be a mistake that will have threatening results. This is also frequently twinned with self-loathing, that might manifest in a selection of ways including verbally ('I'm such a loser' or'No one likes me, anyway' ), self-abuse like cutting, or talk about suicide. While one or 2 of the symptoms could be symptomatic of other issues or merely of being a teen, they is also evidence of depression. If you see any amount of these symptoms in your teen, it is vital that you get into contact with their pediatrician as fast as possible.

While you could be in a position to talk to your teenager about the depression, it actually depends on your relationship with your teen and how you believe that they will reply to your line of interrogating. You should not accuse if you see danger signals of depression in your teen, but should talk delicately with them to discover if they are prepared to share their issues. Diagnosis and intervention can be the tools that help you save your teen from the hazards and problems of this sickness, and your awareness is what will get them there.

Anger And Depression

When some people get depressed, they simply get extremely withdrawn. They go around in a solitary stupor, not wanting to talk to other people and blaming themselves for everything. For me, however, anger and depression go hand-in-hand. When I am angry and depressed, I feel like the world is out to get me. I don't withdraw from the world. I resent it and hate it and want to fight with it. It is an unpleasant feeling, but one that I can't let go of. The depression and anger spiral out of control until I can't be around anyone without finding them difficult to tolerate in the extreme.

Of course, as a psychology major I have some insight into my own condition. There are a lot of different ways people deal with depression, and I know what purpose mine serves and why I do it. Feeling depressed and hopeless is just too hard for me. I would rather feel angry and depressive, keeping the rage inside of me. It gives me motivation to do things and helps me work my way out of my clinical depression.

The problem is that, in some ways, Anger and depression stop me from seeing the role that I play in my own ongoing problems. When I went in for cognitive psychology counseling, I would often argue in circles with my therapist, debating why I was unhappy. He claims that I couldn't see certain self-destructive patterns in my life because of the anger and depression that I felt, and that that was one of the main reasons that I was miserable all the time. I was more inclined to blame things that were beyond my control as a way to escape from responsibility. I was living a very active life and not sinking into brooding, lethargic misery, but at the same time I was unwilling to change and let go of all of that hatred.

I guess this is the double-edged sword of aggressive psychology. People prone to aggressive thinking have so much fire in their bellies that they can really take on the world. On the other hand, we tend to be our own worst enemies. We are so keyed up to fight for our own rights that we sometimes miss it when we trample on other people and their rights, or even when we get in our own ways. Sometimes, just letting go of all the anger and depression makes a much bigger difference than lashing out will. I've been trying to learn this in depression counseling, but it's a slow process. Hopefully, some day I will finally get it and be able to break the cycle of depression and anger.

Male Depression

Your mom or your best friend may suffer from depression. While most people don't like to talk about it, there is a segment of patients with depression that never talk about it and rarely seek help for it. Male depression is probably more common than you think. If you are a woman, and your husband seems to be acting differently and does not seem to be himself, perhaps you should consider that this is going on with him. Men handle depression in different ways, most refusing to accept that this is what is going on emotionally. They will just tell you that they are tired or worn out, but there could be more to it.

Men can develop depression just as easily as women, but women are often the only ones that will really talk about it. For men, they think of male depression as a sign of weakness, even though that is not what it is. They often feel that they have to be strong for their families and that there is no way something like depression can happen to them. This is why many of the cases of depression in men go untreated. Men won't go to the doctor because they feel sad and out of sorts. Some men have trouble going when they have a physical problem too. If those men get depressed, they will probably remain that way for a while.

Signs of male depression are going to be harder to pick out, but if you know someone well enough, you can pick up on the signs. Some men spend a lot more time napping and they end up sleeping longer than they normally do. This may be something you may notice more if the man in question is usually very active. They will just tell you that they are tired, which may be, but if it goes on for a while something else may be wrong – and that something may be male depression.

Other signs of male depression are withdraw from normal activities that they once loved. This is a sign for both sexes, but for men, it may be more pronounced. They may start spending more time playing video games or being on their computers instead of going out with friends and playing sports. Whatever it is that they are into, they will seem as if they are no longer interested. They will say they just don't feel like it. You will know if this is normal for them. Some men don't do a lot, but if the man in question is often out doing something and stops, you may want to think about male depression.

The reasons for male depression are the same reasons why women develop this problem. Some have seasonal depression, which means that they get sad and tired in the winter. They usually come out of this in the springtime. Others go through something at work or in personal relationships. Men have a harder time talking about things that are bothering them, so that can be why they fall into male depression very easily and without warning. It can be hard to get them to open up, but if you can, talk to them about how they feel and what their options might be to feel better.

How to cure depression

The first step in attempting to cure depression is to understand that not all kinds of depression are created equal. There are people who have legitimately unbalanced hormones or, for lack of a better word, crossed wires upstairs. There are people who are just in a rut, sad about a death in the family or losing a job. Then there are also teenagers, for whom the default setting is "depressed." Each of these states are different, and what works for one is overmedication for another, or not enough medication. That's why it's important to get to a doctor, because in order to cure depression you have to know if you're actually biologically depressed.

Medication is typically used for people who want to cure depression, but isn't always needed or helpful. A bit of anecdotal evidence: A friend of mine in college claimed to have depression as a result of a chemical imbalance. He went to the doctor, who tested him for said imbalance and found nothing of note. However since my friend clearly had symptoms, he was prescribed prozac (or a similar medication) to help him regulate his moods.

It didn't work. Why? Because he didn't have clinical depression. He was simply in a rut, unable to be happy with his accomplishments or attempt to break out of his pre-determined path.

So it's a good step to take a look at yourself before you really go off the deep end by taking drugs that mess with your biochemistry. Are you really, truly depressed? Or are you just looking for an "easy" way to make your life into something else?

For most people I think it's the latter. I say this because, at various points in my late teens and early 20s, I claimed to have "depression." Turns out, in hindsight, I was just lazy and unmotivated. What I needed wasn't drugs, but the will to get up every morning, work out, eat right, do my work and then party the night away. Instead I just self-medicated with cigarettes and alcohol, finding brief moments of happiness in between all the ennui. If I could do it over again, I absolutely would.

However, this isn't to say that "depression" doesn't exist. For many people, there are legitimate chemical imbalances that need to be addressed with medication. These are people who can't be permanently helped by a change in routine, exercise and diet, but need chemical treatment.

Sadly, even with chemicals, depression isn't one-hundred percent curable. Science can not yet cure depression. However it is managable, and managing your depression is the first step towards living a life where you're in command, rather than having a disease be in command of you.

Angry Teen Depression

In some ways, there is nothing more disturbing than an angry teen. There you are, getting along fine with your kid and then suddenly, hormones take over and everything goes downhill fast. Your kid starts to write angry poems, dresses strangely, and tries to stay out late, break the rules, and basically be difficult in every way he possibly can. Some angry teens even get more drastic than that. They can get into relationship problems, have issues with violent and self-destructive behavior, and really go off the deep end in a lot of ways.

The key to dealing with an angry teen depression is to realize that you were once like that yourself. The same issues that make teens angry never change. We live in a society where we are considered children long after our biology dictates that we are adults. Many angry teens depression are just trying to accept natural, inborn drives. They become interested in the opposite sex, attempt to to find their identity, and want to go out in the world and have more responsibility. A big part of what makes them angry is that society still sees them as children. They're suddenly going through all these changes and can't express their natural drives in a healthy way because our society constrains them.

When my daughter was an angry teen, I initially had the same problems that many parents have. Then, I started to think about what it was like to be that age. I sat down with her and had a long talk about what she was going through, what she wanted, and what we would require as her parents. Just telling angry teens that you understand and showing them that you respect the need for more freedom can do a lot to defuse the situation. Carrying through on that can do even more. If you trust your teenager's judgment, in general that trust will be rewarded. If you treat your teenager as a child, that teenager is more likely to be childish.

Then again, sometimes things get so bad for an angry teen that you really do need to get some sort of outside help. With my daughter, it was just normal teenage identity things, but a family friend had teenagers with more serious issues. Both their son and daughter were involved in unsavory relationships, using dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and in general getting into a lot of trouble. This wasn't your normal angry teen situation. This was a dangerous situation with a lot of risky behavior. They were such angry people that they weren't amenable to reason. They could not be talked with. They had to both go through long periods of counseling to get better.