What are the signals of serious clinical depression in adolescents?
Everyone gets down now and again. When being down becomes an everyday affair: day after day, week after week, then something is seriously wrong. This is clinical depression. Loss of interest in school, friends, sports, anything and everything is another sign of serious depression. Low energy and loss of appetite are common. Other possible signs are dropping grades in school and alcohol or drug use. Thoughts of death and suicide are always serious danger signals. Are there different types of clinical depression? In discussing serious depression, psychiatrists talk about mood disorders. The most common and one of the most serious mood disorders is Major Depressive Disorder. Persons with this problem have frequently incapacitating symptoms of depression that often last up to a year without treatment. Low, depressed mood, loss of interest in and the ability to enjoy things, sleep and appetite disturbance, low energy, feelings of failure and worthlessness are common. Dysthymic Disorder is a
