Volume 4 Issue 10 Oct 2014
❌Depression and bipolar disorder are just states of mind or tendency to be ‘moody’. A person just needs to “think
positive” and they can do away with the problem.
✅Depression and Bipolar disorder are real, treatable illnesses that affect the brain. Significantly excessive fluctuations in the mood state for certain frequency and duration constitute a mood disorder.
❌Men don’t get depressed.
✅Men are less likely than women to talk about their feelings. However depression is common and instead, men may
become irritable, angry, or restless if they are depressed.
❌Depression is just self-pity & not any illness.
✅Our culture admires will power and mental toughness and is quick to label anyone who falls back as a looser. But
people who have clinical depression are not lazy or simply feeling sorry for themselves. Depression is a medical
illness — a health problem related to changes in the neurotransmitters in the brain. Like other illnesses, it usually
improves with appropriate treatment.
❌Help means drugs for life.
✅In acute stages of mania or depression, patient need drug therapy. Also many patients do need maintenance therapy. However this is not the ‘only’ therapy available. In fact, studies suggest that psychotherapy works as well as drugs for mild to moderate depression. Rhythm therapy also is found to be effective in bipolar disorder patients.
❌People with depression or bipolar disorder should not marry nor have children.
✅People who have been treated properly for mood disorders can handle their own life and children as anyone else.
By Dr Anisha Landage, Resident, Dept of Psychiatry, MGM Medical College & Hospital, Navi Mumbai
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