Brittany Tainsh

Apponequet Regional High School

4 May 2016
Depression in America
Most people have seen the commercial on television that shows a woman in her midthirties being followed around by a dark cloud. The cloud constantly rains on her as she performs
daily tasks such as walking the dog. This cloud is meant to represent a debilitating mental health
condition, depression. It miraculously disappears when she takes a prescription drug and
suddenly all of her problems seem to have been solved, that is as far as the commercial is
concerned. When we look at depression in the real world, it is much different than this
commercial insinuates. For people that suffer from major depressive disorder, antidepressants
often take weeks to begin working at all. There is no instant surge of happiness. In America,
people have been taught to believe that depression is simply sadness that can be whisked away
with one small pill. This belief has ultimately led to people looking for a quick fix for the
hardships of everyday life. Sadness is considered to be abnormal and people are turning to
prescription drugs to counteract it. The misunderstanding of depression has ultimately led to the
overprescription of antidepressants in America.
So just how prevalent is this epidemic in American society? Major depressive disorder is
the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15 to 44.3 and roughly one in every 14 adult
Americans is affected by depression in a given year (Facts and Statistics). The number of
afflicted individuals has quadrupled since the mid 1980s (Is Depression). While these numbers

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are astonishingly high, it is uncertain how many of these people are receiving help for a true
problem, rather than for grieving and/or difficulty coping. The diagnosis had been made in such
a way that if you showed certain symptoms, then regardless of where those symptoms came
from, how you might come by them, what they might mean, then de facto, you were depressed
(Is Depression). This stems from the fact that depression is essentially self diagnosed.
Psychiatrists are unable to follow each of their patients through their daily routines. They are
unable to witness first hand whether or not the patients normal functioning have been impaired,
making it extremely difficult for them to differentiate those that are over exaggerating the extent
of their sadness and those that truly need help.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, depression is a state of feeling sad :
dejection or a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity,
difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time
spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies
(Depression). These two definitions are extremely different, yet are supposed to describe the
same word; One of the two is simply sadness, while the other is potentially life threatening.
Based on these two definitions, it is clear that depression is not a black and white matter. This
confusion often follows into every day language. The term depression is commonly used in
accordance with the first of the two aforementioned definitions, to describe sadness or even
frustration. As in, I am so depressed that I got a parking ticket this morning. . . it is depressing
just walking into that cramped little cubicle every morning. These statements are very far from
describing the medical condition of depression (Grossman). A truly depressed person often
would not be able to leave his or her house in order to get a parking ticket or to sit in a cubicle, as

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the disorder impairs everyday functioning. This misunderstanding and misuse of the word greatly
affects the medical field and causes difficulty in making accurate diagnoses.
Misunderstanding and misusing the word depression in society is not harmful on its own.
It only becomes harmful when this leads to over treatment of it. However, its over treatment is
directly caused by the words misuse and misunderstanding. If you tell a doctor you feel
depressed you will walk away with an antidepressant prescription. Shed a tear in front of a
doctor and you will end up eating a pill that night! (Grossman). When people who do not need
these antidepressants still take them, they can cause themselves a substantial amount of harm.
Most antidepressants work by blocking the brains serotonin receptors; Serotonin is the brains
happy hormone. When the receptors are blocked, the levels of the hormone in the brain
increase, causing an elevated mood. Over time, the body produces less and less serotonin
because of these increased levels and could eventually cease its production totally. When the
individual tries to stop using antidepressants, it is likely that he or she will not be able to because
of his or her brains impaired functioning (Docksai).
Another common side effect of unnecessary antidepressant use is that the individual
could enter a manic state. In a study published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, the rate of
excessive arousal due to antidepressants was 11.2% (Offidani). That means that a little more than
one in every ten people that participated in the study went from some state of sadness to
excessive and unreasonable enthusiasm (Manic). While it does not sound horrible to be in an
extremely good mood, people in manic states often take unnecessary risks that they would not
take other wise. They can end up causing extreme harm to themselves or others because of this.
As long as people are accurately diagnosed with depression, they do not usually entire a manic

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state while on antidepressants and are only elevated to normal functioning. By ensuring the
correct diagnosis of depression before giving out antidepressants, we can potentially help
thousands of people to avoid this state.
Part of the reason that depression is so over diagnosed in America is the way the
guidelines that psychiatrists refer to in order to diagnose the disorder are written. These
guidelines offer little help to doctors because they are extremely vague, further complicating the
task of an accurate diagnosis. According to the DSM-5, symptoms may include weight gain or
loss and insomnia or hypersomnia. (Diagnostic 95). These are drastically different symptoms that
may also be caused by an underlying medical condition. In one case, [The doctors]
misdiagnosed a patient as having depression, when in fact, he had a metastatic lesion that could
have parsimoniously accounted for the apathy, slowing, and motor symptoms he displayed
(Grossman). On top of this, there are no medical tests for depression. There are no scans or blood
work that can be done to definitively tell whether or not a person has the condition. Even the
effectiveness of antidepressants is 100 percent based on the patients opinions, not scientific
evidence and measurements.
The over diagnosis of depression in America needs to be stopped. Patients that are
misdiagnosed can experience brain damage, manic states, and can be denied proper treatment for
underlying conditions. These are serious, irreversible problems that could be avoided with
improved testing methods for depression and a simple change in the American thought process.
Sadness is a normal emotion, one that is felt by almost every human on Earth, while depression
is a condition that inhibits ones everyday functioning and activity, causing a serious problem in
ones life. In the commercials for antidepressants, it must be made clear that there is no easy

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escape from depression, it is a long-term battle, while sadness is much shorter in duration. By
knowing the difference between these two words, and by further defining the line that separates
the two, the rate of depression, as well as antidepressant prescription, will go down in America.

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Works Cited
Andrea, Petersen. "Drugs to Lift Depression in Hours Rather Than Weeks." Wall Street Journal
22 Apr. 2013, Health & Wellness sec. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Web. 4 May.
2016.
"Depression." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 4 May. 2016.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. 5th ed. Washington D.C.:
American Psychiatric Association, 2013. 95. Print.
Docksai, Rick. "Long-Term Risks of Psychiatric Drugs: More Prescriptions Could Lead to More
People Suffering Serious Side Effects." Futurist 1 May 2013. Print.
"Facts & Statistics." Anxiety and Depression Association of America. ADAA, 1 Sept. 2014. Web.
4 May. 2016.
Grossman, Hillel. "Misplacing Empathy and Misdiagnosing Depression." Geriatrics 59.4 (2004):
39-41. Print.
Is Depression Over Diagnosed in America? Ira Flatlow. NPR, 5 Feb. 2010. Radio.
"Manic." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 4 May. 2016.
Offidani, Emanuela, Giovanni A. Fava, Elena Tomba, and Ross J. Baldessarini. "Excessive Mood
Elevation and Behavioral Activation with Antidepressant Treatment of Juvenile
Depressive and Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review." Psychotherapy and
Psychosomatics 82.3 (2013): 132-41. Karger Medical and Scientific
Publishers. S. Karger AG, Basel. Web. 4 May. 2016.