I've designed this site for a variety of reasons:

For people who have never experienced depression, I want to give them an insight into what it feels like, advice on how to deal with someone who has depression and general information about what depression is.

For people who have experienced, or are suffering from, depression, I want to let them know they aren't alone, give them a place to share their stories, gives them tips, advice and support, and most importantly give them hope. In the section below is an explanation of depression including symptons, causes and types of related thinking.

You can email me at amygillespie27@gmail.com with any questions, comments or things you would like me to put up on the website. You can also post on the guestbook.

The website is currently under construction and is not fully ready yet so many areas are not completed.

If possible, it would be great to link this website from your own so that any help it can offer can be offered to a wide range of people.

Thanks for visiting. Take care, Amy xxx

"Sometimes in our lives we all have pain,
We all have sorrow.
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow"

"One day the sun will shine on you;
Turn all your tears to laughter.
One day your dreams may all come true;
One day the sun will shine on you"

In my opinion, the name "Depression" is a badly chosen one because the word "depressed" is used so often that it weakens the meaning of what this illness really is. It is not at all like anything you experience and it's not simply a worsened state of feeling down. The rest of the site will help you to try and understand that.

Depression is more than a bad mood. It is a recognised mental illness. Feeling down is a normal part of life but with depression, emotions are disproportionate to events in the sufferer's life and make them unable to cope with events that a person who isn't depressed would manage to. It is not just sadness but a range of things described in the symptons list below:

• Feeling miserable or sad
• Feeling exhausted
• Finding simple day-to-day things almost impossible
• Losing pleasure in things you used to enjoy
• Feeling anxious
• Feeling lonely
• Wanting to be left alone a lot of the time
• Finding socialising hard
• Being scared to be left alone
• Confused thinking
• Feeling like a failure
• Feeling guilty for little or no reason
• Feeling like a burden to others
• Feeling that life isn't worth living
• Feeling hopeless
• Feeling like you always make mistakes and mess up
• Being particurlarly irritable or angry
• Lack of confidence
• Lack of self-esteem
• Self-hatred
• Being very critical of yourself, your choices and/or people around you
• Obsessing over failures and weaknesses and potential things that could go wrong
• Finding life unfair
• Having difficulty sleeping and/or waking up early
• Disturbing dreams
• Feeling that life isn't quite real
• Feeling numb, emotionless and empty
• Headaches, stomachaches and general aches and pains
• Feeling worthless
• Losing appetite
• Suicidal thoughts
• Feeling restless
• Finding decisions and/or concentration difficult
• Self destructive tendencies including self-harm
• Feeling out of control over your life, thoughts, actions and relationships
• Feeling stressed
• Finding yourself unable to function at work/school/home
• Crying spells
• Unexplained change in weight
• Getting agitated easily

There is a wide range of various symptons (emotional, behavioural and physical) for depression. You may experience few or many of them, experience them strongly or weakly, experience them consistently or in reoccuring episodes, for a long or short period of time and may experiences ones not listed. For it to be diagnosed as clinical depression, roughly five symptons (specifically the bolded, main ones) must be felt for two weeks or more. However, if any of these symptons are worrying you and effecting your life, then they need to be dealt with.

Here are some links to online tests for depression that may help you decide whether you have depression:

Depression Screening ~ Goldberg Test ~ Medical Centre Test ~ eTherapist Test ~ Planet Psych Test ~ Psychology Today Test

There are various different forms of depression.

• Major Depression is when many of these symptons are felt strongly and affect day-to-day life. Suicidal tendencies are often linked to this.
• Dysthymia is a when a weaker form of depression is felt consistenly over a long period of time. It can include episodes of major depression.
• S.A.D (seasonal affectiev disorder) happens when people get depressive symptons in bad weather, specifically where there is a lack of sunlight.
• Bi-polar Depression or Manic Depression is when there are big mood swings which can range from major depression to manic episodes. Manic epsidoes include bursts of disproportionate self-confidence, energy, happiness, feelings of freedom and all this can be very dangerous as risks are taken without a sense of restriction or responsibilty. As with depression, thinking and judgement are affected.
• Edogenous Depression is when depression is the reponse to a particular, definite event.

There is no one cause of depression and it is not certain what causes depression. There is also confusing about whether something (e.g. low self-esteem) is the cause or effect of depression. Causes include:

• Genetics
• Trauma and stress - this can be from a number of things, from death to exams to divorce to relationship problems. It can also be recent or past experiences. It can be a build up of small events. It can be triggered by one big event.
• General pessimistic outlooks, low self-esteem and confidence
• Physical conditions
• Other psychological conditions

Depression is when there are chemical imbalances in the brain, specifically, hormones play a huge part. Chemical messages aren't communicated in the brain properly. The results are the negative emotions and physical effects described above. It can also cut off the instinct to survive making a person suicidal.

It is not weakness. It is not being pathetic. It is not a passing mood. It is serious and needs to be dealt with.

It it not easy to break, especially as it feeds on itself, but it can be broken. There is hope.

Here are some examples of the distorted thinking that depression may, and most probably will, include: (don't be put off by the name; you'll probably recognize the descriptions!)

Dichotomous thinking - This is where you view experiences as two mutually exclusive categories with no "shades of grey" inbetween. For example, believing that youis either a success or failure and that anything short of perfect performance is a total failure.

Overgeneralisation - This is where you perceive a particular event as characteristic of life in general rather than one single event. For example, concluding that one inconsiderate response from a friend means that they don't care and hasn't ever showed consdieration and probably never will.

Selective abstraction - This is where you focus on one aspect of a complex situation and ignoring others. For example, focusing on a negative comment in a report and ignoring all the positive comments.

Disqualifiying the positive - This is where you disregard or argue away positive things that would conflict with your negative view of the world. for example, rejecting compliments and telling yourself that "they're only saying it to be nice" and not considering that they could mean it.

Mind reading - This is where you assume you know what others think or feel towards you, usually in a negative way. For example, thinking "I know he thought he was an idiot!" despite having no real indication of his reaction.

Fortune telling - This is where you react as though expectations of the future are facts rather than recognising them as fears, hopes or predictions. For example, thinking "He's leaving me, I know he is" and acting as thought it is certain.

Catastrophising - This is where you treat negative events (either ones that have happened or ones you expect to happen) totally out of perspective and treating them as a catastrophe. For example, thinking "Oh God, what if I faint?" without considering that it could be a lot worse and won't affect your life that much.

Maximisation/Minimisation - This is where you treat some aspects of a situation, personal characteristics or experiences as trivial and others as veyr important, ignoring their actual significance. For example, thinking "Sure, I'm good at my job, but so what? My parents don't repsect me."

Emotional reasoning - This is where you assume that your emotional response is accurate. For example, concluding that because you feel hopeless, the situation actually is hopeless.

"Should" statements - This is where you use "should" and "have to" in statements that aren't actually true to try and control emotions. For example, thinking "I shouldn't feel upset" or thinking "I'm supposed to be good at my job; I have to finish this whatever it takes."

Labelling - This is where you attah a label to yourself, generalising about a specific event. For example, labelling yourself as a failure instead of recognizing that you simply didn't do so well in that particular thing at that particular time.

Personalisation - This is where you assume that you are the cause of events that other factors are responsible for. For example, thinking that because someone is upset, they must be upset because of you without considering that other things could have caused their bad mood.

All these are habits of thinking that are easy to get into but can be changed and controlled.