She returns to talk about depression after 24-year-old Mew left the program Friends, breaking the silence with an Instagram post in which she talks about eating disorders and the strength of dealing with emotional suffering. “Unfortunately, depression comes out even in the best moments of life and, in this case, it takes away hunger and energy. I stopped eating, I tried not to show anything to anyone and I even succeeded, then I realized that you can feel bad and you can collapse but it’s important to talk about it”.
The numbers of depression
According to data released by Italian Society of Psychiatry (SIP), in Italy major depression affects 7.5 million people, 12.5% of the population. And more and more young people are suffering from it. According to the data of Onda Foundationare 16% of the global burden of disease in the 10-19 age groupwith anxiety and depression which make up 40% of all diagnoses. We talked about it with Doctor Luca Proietti, psychotherapist and psychiatrist.
Depression or unhappiness?
In an Instagram post, the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Luca Proietti addresses the topic with these words.“Sometimes we confuse unhappiness with depression: we use drugs to treat the first and try to resolve the second with an effort of will. It doesn’t work… Let’s not even take sadness into consideration, which is instead a reaction, which if transitory, can also be physiological and healthy, it would require a separate post.
Is depression the most common disorder? Let’s not talk nonsense. There Depression is less common than you think. However, they are widespread there frustrationthe demoralization, the rdepressive reactions and theunhappinessAll conditions that require treatment other than that of depression, primarily psychotherapeutic. There are endogenous depression or other endogenous depressive conditions, which require primarily pharmacological treatment; less frequent than they want us to believe and which must be distinguished from the other conditions just mentioned. Trying to resolve depression only with an effort of will is not only unsuccessful but also worsening.”
How to recognize the symptoms
«It does not always present objective symptoms, for example sleep disturbances, appetite disturbances, difficulty getting out of bed. Often there are subjective experiences that may take time to become explicit (withdrawal from home, loss of work and social life), or which perhaps will never become explicit (difficulty in carrying out some tasks, loss or reduction of interests)”, explains Doctor Projects.
Two types of depression
This is especially true for reactive or exogenous depressions or psychological ones as he called them Van Praagh (biological psychiatrist). In fact, often the endogenous depression presents symptoms more frequently objective symptomsWhile the reactive one or exogenous can only present subjective symptoms. They are different, it’s not a question of severity, both are painful.”
When to seek help from a psychotherapist?
«Asking for help, especially from a psychotherapist, is never wrong, even if what we thought and called depression was actually another problem. So it is advisable ask for help whenever we feel pain or discomfort about a situation, and this does not resolve itself within a few weeks, even more so if it tends to recur with a certain consistency. You are never wrong to ask for help, at most the professional will normalize the situation”, recommends the expert.
The importance of destigmatizing depression
«It’s important to destigmatise, it’s important see that we can all experience psychological distress, like breaking a leg. For it to work, it is important that professionals do it, but also and above all people who have social influence, who can be taken as models by young people”, adds the expert.
However, the word depression is often used inappropriately to dramatically describe situations that have nothing to do with depression. «There is indeed a risk, when someone from the profession does not speak, which is that of call everything depression or everything emotional addiction, while there are a thousand facets. Sometimes we think we “have depression” when the problem is something else.
Other times even i young people risk recognizing themselves in a diagnosis almost to conform and thus feel like they have an identity, but this risk if managed by professionals still transforms into the possibility of allow yourself to experience mental sufferingthen later the names will be given and we will understand what it is or what it is not.”
How much does wearing a mask at work, in the family, in society affect one’s mental health?
«It weighs a lot, just like not giving a name to experiences, not understanding that it can be normal, that there is an explanation and that often what we feel is understandable and even solvable. The problem is that on the one hand we tell ourselves that it is normal and that we can suffer from these problems, but often they are just words. On the other hand we have internalized the models of one society that wants us to be hyper-performing and wearable. We have internalized the stigma and this causes it in addition to the discomfort of the problem adds what comes from not accepting, not being able to express what we feel”, concludes Doctor Proietti.
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