Writing A Position Paper: Helping the Depressed

Writing A Position Paper: Helping the Depressed

  Our society has overtime been engulfed in immense depression across multiple age-groups. Many people are suffering from signs and symptoms of depression, which sets in during adolescence and proceeds to adulthood. It is believed that many people suffer from depression in the US, which is a sickness condition affecting individuals in a negative way. It drains their energy, makes them feel hopeless, unhappy, and angry with themselves. Affected people experience emotional, physical, and psychological problems that minimize their abilities to function well. The symptoms of a depressed individual include loss of appetite, loss of interest on things that they once loved, altered sleeping patterns, feeling guilty and hopeless, trouble in comprehending things, and frequent suicidal thoughts.It takes two weeks of these symptoms to be fully diagnosed as depression by a professional physician.

Estimates indicate that nearly seventeen million adults are affected by the depressive disorder, representing seven percent of the population in the USA, according to results issued by the National Institute of Mental Health, 2017. Over three hundred million people are affected by depression in the country, covering children and adults.Women are most affected, and the most age-group facing this problem ranges between eighteen to twenty-five years. These statistics indicate that depression sets in during the adolescence stage, and if proper measures are taken, it would be avoided at an early stage of life.It is alarming at how many people are affected by depression, hence a need to help out and prevent it from spreading further and affecting many people across the globe.

How can we help depressed individuals?

Depression starts as a simple issue that is not addressed in an effective way, leaving the victim to feel hopeless, angry, tired, drained, suicidal, and without anyhelp coming ahead.Positive emotions are replaced by negative ones, creating sadness, discouragement, desperation, anxiety, shame, and angry about something unknown. They feel uninterested in many things, and do not want to explore, or engage in activities that bring happiness..

It is a high time to assist individuals battling depression and give them hope. By volunteering to have time with them, make them talk about the issues affecting them, the situations, and ways of engaging them productively to produce positive outcomes in their lives. Organizing special departments across major government institutions, companies, private organizations, and, most importantly, in colleges and campuses across the state and supporting the volunteers to acquire sufficient training in dealing with depressed people guidance and counseling courses.Donating money or setting aside time to visit the affected individuals, and helping the local programs aiming to assist depressed people.

Hospitals also have the challenge of dealing with depressed patients, and donating some money or food could tremendously assist. Another way to help is offering to take medicine to patients who are not able to reach hospitals, showing them compassion and love, and encouraging them to come out of the negative thoughts affecting them. Understanding a depressed individual is vital because their behavior might seem erratic or unpredictable. Patience plays a significant role in fully understanding depressed patients and helps them know that the condition is treatable, manageable, and not permanent. Helping depressed individuals to find treatment is significant, also staying in touch to check on their progress, and treatment can prove as helpful.

What not to do while helping out

While offering depressed individuals help, some things need not be done, like taking the issue personally and blaming the victim for their misfortune and disorderliness. Avoid fixing the problem if you do not possess knowledge in dealing with depressed people. Consulting and seeking professional help is essential. Do not compare situations with other people who might not have recovered from the sickness, or preventing the victims from taking their medication. It will worsen their condition and might make treatment difficult. It is important to take interventions as soon as one identifies their friends, relatives, kin, are depressed, intervening at an early stage will prevent victims from committing suicide. An additional precaution is to avoid using other medications apart from the prescribed ones because they might complicate the issue further and result in severe symptoms.

Conclusion

Sympathy is what makes humans survive. The statistics and numbers of depressed people keep rising all over the world and should be a motivational basis to offer help. Different organizations, both private and public ones, need to set aside time, resources, and personnel to assist depressed individuals in the community.The problem is more extensive as it seems to be present, and everyone is at risk of becoming depressed at one time in their lifetime. Campaigns to be done on sensitizingdepression to the public, and the steps to deal with it. Further research needs to be done to provide long-lasting solutions for future generations.