Depression is not only a state of being sad, it is a disease that conquers the ability to feel emotion, whether good or bad. Depression not only involves the mind, it also involves the body and thoughts. Some complain of excessive headaches and extreme pain and this is identified as depression. This disease can be passed down through genes or can follow external events or can be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Depression affects twenty percent of all Americans, some without even knowing it, at sometime during their lives.
Depression is not a disease that only influences males or children of the age three to eleven. Every human being is prone to depression. Although women are three times more likely to become depressed than men, men are five times more likely to commit suicide when depressed than women. Some think that women have a less pleasing social role and their hormones make them more likely to admit tp depression. Men are more subject to keep their emotions bottled up inside of them because of their role in society or it may question their manhood. Although all age groups are open to depression, teenagers are the most common to be heard of being affected by the disease.
This is probably because of peer pressure and the changes in their life. Although the rate of suicide as a whole has decreased in the past twenty five years, the fixed amount of suicide from those between fifteen and nineteen has sky rocketed and quadrupled. The number of deaths due to suicide each year is roughly the same number of deaths from AIDS. Depression’s cost to the United States economy every year is estimated at forty-four billion dollars. This disease is second only to cancer on the impact of our society.
By itself depression can cause extreme sadness, anxiety, insomnia and even thoughts of suicide. With all this going on we still don’t have a big organization to