Know the Sign and Symptom of Depression and Suicidal Behavior

“It was happened about a year ago when I found my self in a darkest part of my life so far. I was
depressed. I was thinking about ending my life in the most ridiculous way. Let me tell you, it
wasn’t a good time at all, but I do realize it’s a part of my journey that is worth to fight for. Back
then, I wasn’t as strong as I am right now. I was so fragile, easily cry, skeptical, and had a really
low self-esteem. Hopefully it was the first and the last. It ain’t right.
Am I really surviving? Fortunately, I am.”

Have you ever experienced things like this?

If it’s a no, well then I’m happy for you. I have two hypotheses, first, you have a minimum stress
in life, or second, you do have a great coping mechanism to overcome all those stresses.
If it’s a yes, then I’m telling you right now, “You are not alone! Together we can figure a way
out.”

We have two words here, “depression” and “suicide”. Both are related and it’s a serious
problem we have to deal with these days.
What is depression? What is suicide?
Depression is a mood disorder, characterised by persistent feeling of sadness and lost of
interest that affects our thought, body, and daily activities. Suicide is the act of deliberately killing
oneself, as a result of the prior depression. We’ll call it as a disorder if it causes distress and
disability, of course if it’s suicide act it already classified as a disorder. It’s an emerging disease
we all known, and it is a serious problem. Depression affected nearly 350 millions people world
wide based on World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016, where 800.000 people are commited
suicide each year. This number won’t stop here, it tends to increase along with the escalating
amount of stress in this modern world.

It is preventable, if we can identify the sign and symptom early.

What are the sign and symptom of depression that can lead to suicide act?
 Persistent feeling sad or empty
“I found my self in grief, but I don’t know why.”
“Lately I’m feeling blue all day long, so gloomy.”
“There’s a hole inside that I can’t be replace with anything.”
 Feeling hopeless / worthless / helpless
“No one cares about me, I’m nothing.”
“I’m so stupid, no use.”
“No one can help me, no one can save me.”

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  Feeling lonely
 Irritable / restlessness
Easily get mad with a minimal trigger. Overthinking about simple, untreaten thing.
Doing a repetitive act consciously / unconsciously.

 Loss of interest in pleasurable activities or hobbies

 Cry a lot
 Dificulty concentrating / remembering / making decision
 Lack of energy
 Fatigue
 Spend more time by them self
 Insomnia / hypersomnia(excessive sleeping)
 Loss of appetite / increase of appetite
Each person can manifested it differently, for some it’s a loss, for other it’s a gain.

 Persistent physical aches or pains that do not ease with treatment (headache, dizziness,
cramps, nausea, etc)

 Thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts (suicidal behavior)

Any kind of thoughts about or attempts to ending life (ex : wrist cut, pills overdose,
builing jump, insectisides, fire gun, etc). Can be accompanied with an act of writing a will.
If it happened, it classified directly as a severe depression and need an intervention as soon
as possible. Some of them may need hospitalization to prevent and observe their suicidal
behavior, along with medication to help increasing their serotonin level (which play role
in pathophysiology of depression) to boost their mood and stabilize it. This medication is
a long term treatment.

If you experience it or see other people have it, please, don’t be ashamed or afraid to get help.
Together we can help it and fight it. Although people express their feelings differently, but if we
sensitive enough, we do can see it. Hopefully if you see your friends, relatives, or maybe strangers,
you can do something about it, to prevent something bad happened. A simple act of caring can
have a huge impact in someone’s life. Maybe just a simple “hello” can change their world.

Dex

Dex