At some point in our lives, we suffer depression. Depending on our circumstance, depressions are handled differently. The real challenge is how to overcome depression and not make it serious. We heard many people attempted or succeeded committing suicide or mass murder because of depression. If we do not want to die immaturely, we have to know about psychotic depression.
There are people here in Singapore suffering from psychotic depression. Some people just don’t know yet or in denial but regardless, it is crucial that we learn to identify one and we know how to proceed. Psychotic depression is a major depressive episode which is usually complemented with psychotic symptoms. To prevent this from plaguing our loved ones or friends, we have to know some truths about it. Here are some truths:
- Symptoms: Psychotic depression can destroy life in general. The first thing that we need to know is the symptoms. Patients experience symptoms of depressive episodes accompanies by psychotic symptoms like hallucinations and/or delusions. Hallucinations refer to something (auditory, olfactory, visual or haptic) that seems real but does not really exist. Delusions on the other hand are characterized by congruent or incongruent moods like punishment, guilt, disease or inadequacy.
- Cause: Psychotic depression develops after the patient has had series of depression without psychosis. It is crucial that we do not let psychosis emerge because once it emerges, it will reappear in the future. The families of patients are at risk. The causes will depend on the circumstance of the patient.
- Diagnosis: Psychotic symptoms are overlooked in psychotic depression because patients tend to hide their symptoms or they do not think that that is the case. Due to intersecting symptoms, psychotic depression may be confused with schizoaffective disorder. There are many specialists here in Singapore that can help us identify.
- Treatment: The good news is that there is no hopeless case. There are several treatments that we can consider as long as we seek the help of specialists. It is very important that we do not ignore this. Specialists may recommend a combination of antidepressants and electroconvulsive therapy. We do not know if we are allergic of some medicines so we have to tell doctors if there are side effects like nausea, dizziness, headaches and weight gain. We
Psychotic depression is a serious that is why it should not be disregarded or ignored. If we know of someone who has tendencies, we have to help them as soon as possible before it is impossible for them to crawl back.