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" Can&amp;#039;t get out of bed? Bummin&amp;#039; on life? It might not be just a case of the blues. Could be you&amp;#039;re battling depression. We all feel depressed or bummed out from time to time, and it&amp;#039;s totally normal. But when you&amp;#039;re feeling completely out of whack for a couple of weeks, and life&amp;#039;s become a real drag, your depression is serious. So how can you tell the difference between being depressed or just being in a down, funky mood? The first step is to understand depression. Depression is not a choice. It&amp;#039;s like an ongoing state of being totally bummed out, and you can&amp;#039;t just snap out of it. Many things can trigger it, like the death of someone close, unhealthy relationships, family financial difficulties, or being the victim of any kind of abuse. Luckily, because depression is an illness, it is treatable. In most cases, you can get rid of it with medicine that keeps neurotransmitters (chemicals in the brain that affect moods) in check. Going to talk-therapy with a professional therapist is another form of helpful treatment. The next step is to pay attention to your moods over a set amount of time (like a week) and rate your feelings using the following guide on a scale of one to 10. Maybe you&amp;#039;re just a tad moody--maybe it&amp;#039;s more. Could be just the blues or the lame weather. On this type of day, on a scale of one to 10, we&amp;#039;re probably a one or two in terms of feeling sad. When we have bad premenstrual syndrome (PMS), we may be a three, tops. When you get around six or seven, depression is real. Your grades may begin to slip at school, and you may have trouble getting out of bed. In fact, you may not be able to get yourself to school at all when you are at seven or eight on the scale. It&amp;#039;s OK to occasionally be around a three or four, even a day or two of depression at five. But when your depression has lasted more than two weeks, and you have four or five of the symptoms listed at left, your depression&amp;#039;s serious and you should talk to someone, like a family doctor or clergyman. Whenever you have depression of nine or 10, which is when you just don&amp;#039;t feel like living anymore, you must get help immediately. [SIDEBAR] ?For more info and free pamphlets on depression, call the Depression Awareness, Recognition and Treatment Project at the National Institute of Mental Health at (800) 421-4211. ?If you (or a friend) are feeling really down, or like you can&amp;#039;t go on anymore, call the National Crisis Hotline at (800) 621-4000. [SIDEBAR] the faces of depression No two people get depressed in exactly the same way. Some people show just one or two of these symptoms, while others can relate to just about all of them: ? You feel sad, anxious or guilty. ? You&amp;#039;re not interested in doing your favorite things, like playing soccer. ? You feel everything around you is hopeless; you view everything in a negative way. ? You sleep a lot more or a lot less than usual. ? You lose your appetite or constantly eat, and gain or lose weight. ? You cry all the time, or you&amp;#039;re cranky. ? You have difficulty making decisions, concentrating and remembering. ? You have headaches or stomach pains that won&amp;#039;t go away. ? Most seriously, you have thoughts of death or suicide. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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