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“I’m depressed” is so often uttered in response to a life situation that leaves a person feeling momentarily feeling the blues that many people do not recognize that depression can be a critical menal health problem that can cripple a person’s entire life, if not treated.
While it is normal that life situations -- the illness or death of a loved one, problems with an errant child, personal sickness or financial problems or job woes -- can make a person
feel down or depressed for a few days, feeling blue or depressed for more than a few weeks is a warning signal of clinical depression.
Some symptoms of clinical depression include loss of interest in daily activities, feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness and sadness, unexplained weight loss or gain, unexplained physical problems such as headaches or back pain, crying spells for no apparent reason, trouble focusing or concentratiang, irritability and restlessness, feeling tired or fatigued and thoughts of suicide or suicidal behavior.
Mental Health America describes depression as ‘a whole body illness that affects your mood, thoughts, body and behavior.” It can last for weeks, months or years at at time.
Clinical depression afflicts as many as 20 million Americans annually and African-Americans are one of the most vulnerable groups to suffer from depression. They are also among the groups that are unlikely to get help for clinical depression.
African-Americans are likely to shrug depression off as something they will eventually get over or just refuse to acknowledge it because they see doing so as a sign of weakness or a sign of a lack of faith. In other words, “Jesus will fix it if I just show enough faith or pray a little harder.”
While mental health professionals consider spirituality an important factor in treating depression, they also believe that effectively working with depression requires medical help, just as one would require medical intervention in treating cancer or high blood pressure.
There is also a stigma attached to depression and other mental illness in African-American communities that do not exist in other communities. Terrie M. Williams, author of Black Pain: It Just Likes Like We’re Not Hurting and a woman who suffered from clinical depression, says that Black people would rather say that they have a relative in jail before they will acknowledge they have a mental illness. Whites, Ms. Williams says, have no such problem; it is nothing for her white colleagues to tell her that they have an appointment with a therapist.
Another factor in African-Americans failing to get treatment for clinical depression is that, historically, African-Americans have been conditioned to either supress or repress their emotional pain.
Ms. Williams also points out that African-Americans are less likely than whites to have access to comforts such as yoga, mental health services or massges to alleviate stress.
The medical community is also more likely to diagnose clinical depression in African-Americans, particularly African-American women who are twice as likely to suffer from clinical depression as white women.
Still, when they seek out health professionals because they are having prolonged periods of feeling blue and sad, they are often misdiagnosed as being hypertensive and given anti-hypertensive medicine, told to lose weight or get a change of scenery, not given mental help treatment.
A significant number of the substance abuse problems in the African-American community may stem from untreated depression as African-Americans attempt to self-medicate themselves by drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana or smoking crack cocaine.
The problem escalates to the point that they eventually end up not only with clinical depression but a addiction.
There are many causes for clinical depression, with some studies citing racism and perceived racism.
A Cornell University study of highly educated African-Americans --- study subjects either had doctoral degrees or were earning doctoral degrees -- found that racism and perceived racism led to higher levels of anxiety and depression in the subjects.
Medical professionals estimate that as many as 80 percent of people suffering from depression can be helped if they seek medical help.
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