Psychomotor Retardation, which is a general slowing of movements of the body is sometimes seen in depression and severe cases can be what’s called Catatonia – in which a person becomes so stiff, so rigid, literally like he or she can’t move. Suicidality is perhaps one of the most dreaded symptoms of depression, in which a person may even begin to have thoughts of wanting to end the his or her own life. Other things that we’ve often find in depression include isolation, so people will cut off contact with those who they are closest with and have no desire to connect to other people. Sometimes people will experience somatic symptoms, meaning they’ll have stomach aches, they’ll have backaches, they’ll have unexplained pain. Interestingly, this is one of the ways that depression sometimes comes to medical attention – is people having these other symptoms that are perhaps a result of their depression.

Suicide is one of the most feared complications of depression and it unfortunately is more common in people who struggle with depression than in the general population. Some estimates say it may be up to 27 times more common in people with depression as opposed to the general population. While there is no way for any mental health professional to know whether any given individual will commit suicide, there are certain risk factors that can increase or decrease the likelihood and that a mental health professional will look at in trying to help stratify the risk of an individual towards suicide. Some of the risk factors that we think about are prior attempts of suicide being a high risk factor, male gender, hopelessness, and access to firearms can all increase (among other things) the risk of a person’s likelihood of committing suicide. Ways to decrease the risk would include obviously treating the depression, removing access to dangerous items like firearms or pills in the appropriate situation. Frequent mental health follow up with a professional and trying to mobilize as much support as possible in the person’s life.

In all honesty, modern science doesn’t really know what causes depression. Some people will tell you that it is due to a deficiency in the neurotransmitter (a fancy word for a chemical in the brain called Serotonin.) While Serotonin does seem to play an important role in the regulation of mood, to say that depression is just the result of too little Serotonin is probably a gross simplification. While we don’t really know what causes depression, we do know a number of things that seem to contribute to the risk of developing depression and probably all together are impacting the development of depression in a person. Here we have to think of a few different common causes. One is biological causes. Genetics, for example, can increase the risk of depression in some individuals, so if a person’s family member who has depression, they may be at risk for depression themselves. Certainly not a guarantee that they’re going to develop it and not even necessarily likely that they’re going to develop it, but their risk may be a little bit higher than the rest of the population. Certain medical conditions seem to affect depression. Things like heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s, stroke – all seem to travel together with depression and some of them may be involved in causing depression.