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Symptoms of Depression

How do you recognize symptoms of depression in yourself and others? People who suffer from depression have a number of symptoms nearly every day, all day, for at least two weeks. Depressed people have feelings of extreme sadness, hopelessness, despair, low self-worth, and helplessness. For some people, depression is marked by anxiety, withdrawal from others, loss of sleep or excessive need for sleep, constant fatigue, loss of appetite or compulsive eating, loss of sexual desire, either lethargy or agitation, an inability to concentrate and make decisions, and possibly exaggerated feelings of guilt.

Many depressed individuals have mental and physical symptoms that seem endless and do not get better with happy events or good news. Some depressed people are so disabled by their condition that they don’t have enough energy to call a friend, relative, or medical professional for help. If another person calls for them, these people may refuse to go because they have no hope that they can be helped.

If you’re feeling depressed, you’re probably having some of these symptoms:

     Crying spells.

     Feelings of guilt: "It’s all my fault."

     Self-condemnation or self-hatred:

     "I can’t do anything right."

     Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.

     Extreme fatigue.

     Difficulty concentrating.

     Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness:

     "It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters."

     Difficulty making decisions.

     Changes in appetite and/or noticeable weight

     changes.

     Periods of being in frenzied activity, followed

     by periods of total lethargy.

     Loss of interest in sex or sudden excessive

     interest in sex.

     Suicidal thoughts.

     Thoughts about dying.

Physical symptoms such as headaches, backaches, digestive upsets, or other.

While these symptoms might sound serious, there is hope. Depression, fortunately, is the most common and most treatable of all mental health problems.

Family and friends should keep trying to get the depressed person to seek help, because up to 15 percent of those who suffer from severe clinical depression commit suicide.

I was pretty busy with my Grandparent’s 55th Wedding Anniversary last week. It was a grand event over the weekend and preparing for it was wonderful. Especially after witnessing the outcome. Magical & exquisite.

About 500 guests, again, just as 5 years ago during their 50th Anniversary party, my cousin Zairin & I were made emcees. What was funny was that upon getting our script, we realized that it was the same ol script from 5 years ago!! After poking fun at it, we made our changes and surprisingly, this time around it wasn’t too bad at all. We were quite calm & collected (ok, we seemed calm and collected) which was good.

Well, calm & collected is good, especially since all of us (all 7 grandchildren) were gonna sing at the end of the night for our Grandparents as our gift to them.. (yeah, them and 498 other people!!!)

I don’t know what was more nerve-wrecking? Singing to my grandparents? Singing in front of a crowd of 500 people or singing in front of Datuk Siti Nurhaliza? She (and her hubby, the ever-famous Datuk K) were our guests of honor as Auntie Ijat (Dato’ Seri Shahrizat) was unable to stay the night due to two other functions at hand.

It was a Japanese song but made duet with an Indonesian singer hence the song is now Japanese-Indonesian.. which of course, I was ever so lucky to get the part in Japanese AND I guess by being the first of the pack, I win hands down at getting the first verse… heh! We had evening live band practises at TUDM.. It was so cute seeing my brother memorize his lines, day in and day out. For an 8 year old, he had the chorus to sing and mind you, that chorus was again in Japanese.. he not only memorised his part, but everyone else’s part too.. hehe… besides Aris, Nita really cracked me up each time she sang! she’d belt out like she just wanted to get it over with and with her bubbly face and the tone in her voice, she actually looked really cute doing it!

I guess for a parent — seeing their life, their children’s life, their grandchildren’s life in 55 years, it must be something. You’re blessed to see how far your children have come, from nothing to now, where they have their own family and earning hard to provide a comfortable living for everyone. People in the old days worked really hard to earn a living and they didn’t care about the kind of luxury we see today. It’s nice when their children have a little to give back, so they can actually have a taste of today’s wealth.

Insya-Allah, should my Grandparents have long life, I’m pretty sure we’d be happy to do it all over again at their 60th Anniversary.. by then, my cousins would be pretty grown-up, almost done with their studies.. and some even working a full-time job.. or Zairin or Azraai may be married.. ehehehe… I wonder if they’ll have their very own cicit by then (obviously, not counting on me lah kan cos God knows when I’ll be ready to say "I do", to a guy)

…and my cute lil brother will no longer be that cutie-pie-in-a-tux.. he’ll be that tall handsome teenager that all "Mami’s" would be asking.. "ni anak sape ni..??" possibly eyeing for their lil girls or their single granddaughters.. lol.. Aris.. Aris.. tsk tsk…

A special thanks goes out to my cousins (5 out of 7 grandchildren are Friendsterholics) for making that night a night to remember — together.

**Note to self: Comfortable heels that can last you til 2am.. that’s all you really need.

Went to work only for an hour today.. well, an hour and twenty minutes (if you must).

Miserable.. Miserable.. Miserable.. Miserable..

Don’t know why i’m feeling the way i am.. well, maybe i do.. i don’t know.. Didn’t feel like being anywhere but I know of a place that can make it all better. Twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting thru a SPA manicure & SPA pedicure. If you think you’re too macho for one or it’s only for girly girls.. (rolling eyes) you’re missing out on a lot babe! It makes you feel so much better about yourself right after. Another one would be getting your hair washed and steamed. *heaven* (if your jaw is currently dropping.. close it! So what if Nizz has gone all "metrosexual".. haha)

Anyway.. I enjoyed the whole "ME" time.. I even decided to go the extra mile & got my legs waxed. I’ve never, ever done that before but since my heart already felt like it was ripped out, i’m sure waxing couldn’t be any worse now, heh. And as predicted, the whole ripping out was well… just another jolt. each time, a fresh jolt.

I don’t feel like doing anything today. I don’t feel like talking to anyone either. I don’t even feel like playing badminton today.. or maybe I will.. who knows, if i actually kick my CEO’s butt today, that could be a mood shifter.

Ok lah.. i think it’s racquet time.

When do you know that you’re ready to take the plunge?

Why the sudden thought? Well, a certain someone indirectly threw me a marriage proposal last night (which would be pretty great if you were hoping for one!) but I’m not sure if i’m ready for that huge step. (Besides, a marriage proposal at that Lebanese restaurant is really not my idea of a proposal at all)

What are the things that I need to revise before making such a decision..? Even though it was an indirect proposal.. but knowing his intentions are such, I have a feeling that the next time this topic crops up.. chances are, he will be asking for real.

I’ve been sitting down, trying to think what my life has been like all this while.. I remember being happy.. I remember being in love. I had someone I really REALLY wanted.. but that person didn’t wanna be with me. That person rather be with just about anyone else rather than me, no matter how ideal i tried to be.. Thinking of how much love i felt for this person, i’m honestly too afraid to fall in love again cos i don’t wanna ever feel such disappointments from another person again.

Then looking at my life now.. I’ve been punishing myself for everything i’ve been thru. The silence we undergo just makes me not wanna go out anymore, it makes me stay at home and keep to myself. Deep down, i just wish that days were just long nights so that I wouldn’t have to wake up & face another lonely day. I feel my best when I’m at work. There’s just so much to do, sometimes i can barely feel the pain.. Days when I decline to go for lunch are usually the times when I feel I can just cry it out quietly at my workstation, with no worries that someone will barge in. That would be MY moment, MY personal space that I really need in a day.

My baggage is still there and it’s unlikely that I’ll get over it anytime soon. However my baggage is not my only concern in the whole marriage proposal thing… It also has to do with a lot of other stuff which i don’t know if it’s really part of the whole wedding jitters thing? Or is it me being my usual paranoid self?

Pondering upon the future, I think I would make a very good wife someday (insya-Allah) however, if that target is like "anytime soon".. i have doubts about myself holding the role well. Is the guy really who I wanna spend the rest of my life with? Am I sure? Am I really sure? Am I really, REALLY sure? Have I had enough options in life to zero down to this one person? Do we have chemistry? What if we don’t? Err.. I don’t know how to cook and I hate messy people cos I’m messy in some ways but when I’m around messy people, I instantly turn orderly. and there’s the whole controlling issue.. I’ve lived with my very protective parents for the last 27 years.. i don’t wanna marry someone who will be just as merimaskan as that! The kind of person who controls who you wanna see, etc.. I don’t like being questioned as to why I wanna meet a certain person. As long as you trust me, one will have nothing to worry about. There are a whole lot of stuff that goes thru my mind, and I’m pretty much The Thinker.. so even nitty gritty stuff does matter!

Is this where I leave my baggage and move on? or is this where I open back the bag one last time to see if i’m sure i wanna leave the contents behind?

Is this where I say goodbye & never look back? or is it not? *sighs*

No one usually notices whenever I actually get a haircut. Seriously. No one. Not even my other half! Usually they’d say, kalau setakat trim an inch or two, canne je nak see the difference.. but of course i feel the difference, an inch or two pun.. :p

and so, again.. i go for the routine haircut (trim, whatever!).. and I’m early for work today, which is odd.. and guess what? my collegue, SS expresses that I look different this morning.. and he actually noticed that I got a haircut..& he likes it.. which was a really nice ring to the morning. Ok, he wasn’t "exactly" The First to tegur my haircut, technically he was the second. My cousin noticed my haircut yesterday but then again, it’s my cousin!! she notices just about anything done, so tak kira laa.. hehe (yes, i know you’re reading Kak Nadia..)

I sorta wanted to see a certain someone today.. I wondered to myself, "rase dia perasan tak my hair nanti?".. anxious and nervous to know if it would be liked or disliked by this person cos somehow this one opinion still mattered.. in fact, it might be the ONLY opinion that matters — to me. …but of course i didn’t get to see the person and again, I was accompanied by the sense of disappointment that has become a regular customer of late.

i burned a cd almost into the weekend, last week. as every cd i’ve burned, there’s a song that’s practically on Repeat.. but this time around, there are a few songs that fight for this honorary spot on my Kenwood. Words ponder thru my head while these songs played (repeatedly) in the background.. sometimes it drowns my thoughts which is a good sign that I should lower down the volume of my cd player, laa kan?

"Can people change".. no.. "Do people change?" I mean do they really, really change? and IF they do, why do they change? Change is not necessarily a good thing. If you change for the better, you’re safe but if you take a turn for the worst, then you were probably better off as you were.

Why do I feel so sad tonight? Is it because I feel I lost someone I loved dear to my heart? No, that person was already gone quite a while ago.. I just never saw it. ….but people change. they can stay lost or they may find their way back to you again… all you need is faith & belief.

Sometimes, when you hold on to something you REALLY, REALLY believe in, it comes true. It just does. Maybe it’s a payment of some sort for the long wait-out.. or as reimbursement of the heartache & crap you had to undergo for as long as you did before you could FINALLY get what you want. I’m not a quitter… I just don’t have the strength to pull everything together on my own. Don’t interpret my frustration as a sign of giving up.. It’s my frustration.. but I still have hope and I have time.

Which brings me to this.

People underestimate the power of time. Time seems like forever when you’re in need of something urgently.. but people fail to recognize that time can cure that broken heart.. either with a new love or reconciliation with a past love.. (what was that saying again? "Absence make the heart grow fonder" ..kan? - fine! it’s corny but think about it, IT’S TRUE!) Hmmm… either way, it looks like it’s gonna be a mighty longgggggg wait for me.

A broken heart can be rather damaging.. and a silent cry for help is still a cry for help.

The day I stumbled on you, love was not in my list
But I fell so hard for you, it was too hard to resist
I didn’t know the challenge I was up against
But you made me feel that i was better than the rest

The "so in love" look we used to give each other
Everyone could tell that we were together
That dreamy look, the kisses we’d allow
It all feels so distant now

It’s usual for couples to lose their way
And i hope we’ll find "us" again someday
I really hate the wait & I hope it won’t be too late
Cause it’s YOU that i totally wanna date

Love is a cycle, it’s a circle in the making
No matter what, we’re joined together - there’s just no faking
Thru happy days and troubled times.. Yang promise we’ll be fine
I love you — Always & Forever Baby Sayang, you’ll be mine.