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| Everyone occasionally experiences "the blues". These feelings of sadness are a normal reaction to the problems everyone faces in life. | |
| It's normal to feel grief when a loved one is lost, or sadness when enduring emotional problems; however, in major depression, these feelings are totally blown out of proportion. | |
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| Also, feeling sad may not be the most prevalent feeling that a depressed person has. Depression can also cause a person to feel numb or empty, experiencing little or no joy in their lives. | ||
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| Depression affects over ten million people per year in the United States alone. Over an average lifetime, between 8 and 15 percent of the population will experience serious depressive reactions. Two out of three of these people will be women. Fifteen percent of people diagnosed as having a depressive disorder will end their lives by suicide. This accounts for about half of all suicides in the United States. | ||
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| The real tragedy, however, is that about 80 percent of all depressive disorders are highly responsive to treatment. It's estimated that only one out of three seriously depressed persons ever seek treatment. | ||
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