This is a time of year when many people start having problems due to depression. Unfortunately, in many cases the depression is not recognized. Sometimes it is situational depression caused by the upcoming Holiday Season while other times it may be Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that is the cause. This is an even bigger problem for people undergoing chronic pain management.

Many people with chronic pain frequently become depressed due to living with under-treated or mistreated pain symptoms. This process starts when thinking and emotions become problematic. This is when thinking becomes irrational or dysfunctional and feelings are not managed well. There are often urges to indulge in self-defeating, impulsive or compulsive behaviors to cope with the depression. This in turn affects relationships with others.

Below you will see a checklist that includes many of the symptoms that are typical for clinical depression. Note, however, that only some of these symptoms are necessary for a diagnosis of depression. If you or someone you love has several of these symptoms please seek professional help. Depression is very treatable; especially if it is recognized and immediately addressed.

Symptoms of Depression

1. A significantly depressed mood or general absence of mood: You may sometimes find yourself feeling overly negative and down or at other times emotionally cut off.
2. Inability to experience pleasure or feel interest in daily life: Things that used to excite or interest you now hold no attraction at all. Sometimes it hardly seems worth getting up.
3. Inexplicable crying spells, sadness and/or irritability: You may find yourself crying for no reason or having a temper tantrum and lashing out without any provocation.
4. Insomnia (difficulty sleeping) or hypersomnia (oversleeping) nearly every day: You either can’t get to sleep or stay asleep and/or find yourself spending most of your time sleeping to the point of missing important events in your life.
5. A substantial change in appetite, eating patterns or weight: You find that you have no appetite and nothing sounds good so you just don’t eat, or in an effort to feel better you discover that eating certain types of foods seems to sooth you. You either loose or gain a significant amount of weight.
6. Fatigue or energy loss: You seem to be always tired or don’t seem to have enough energy to accomplish even simple tasks of daily living.
7. Diminished ability to concentrate: You find that paying attention is very difficult you may even find yourself reading the same page over and over or forgetting the plot of a movie you are watching.
8. Difficulty making decisions: You can’t seem to decide what to do even in simple areas that used to be easy for you. You tend to procrastinate or put off having to decide.
9. Feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness: At times you feel like your life is always going to be unbearable or that you don’t deserve to be happy or successful.
10. Inappropriate feelings of guilt or self-criticism: You find yourself putting yourself down for little things and feel bad about things that might not even really be your fault.
11. A lack of sexual desire: You have lost your interest and passion for being a sexual being. It either seems like too much of a hassle or you just don’t care anymore.
12. Suicidal thoughts, feelings or behaviors: You start having thoughts like “maybe I’d be better off dead,” or “I feel that life isn’t worth living.” You may even start thinking about ways you could kill yourself and even start developing a plan.

To learn more about effective chronic pain management with coexisting depression please check out my article Deprssion Management with the Chronic Pain Patient that you can download for free on our Article page.

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You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.