Depression is experienced as feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and an inability to enjoy life.  When a mood becomes depressed this is a consistent low feeling over a period of time, usually a period of three weeks or more of a consistently low mood.  Most people in their lives will experience periods of depression sometimes it can be a response to a distressing event eg grief, a relationship ending, job loss, or an accumulation of disturbing events.  Some people might have a genetic predisposition to depression or it can be the impact of environmental factors like attachment trauma, childhood emotional neglect,  developmental trauma. 

There are different levels of depression identified as:

• Mildly depressed
• Moderately depressed
• Clinical depression

Symptoms of depression:

• Outbursts of anger or emotion
• Intense feelings of sadness
• Changes in appetite either not eating or overeating
• Avoiding social contact
• Insomnia or sleeping excessively
• Suicidal thoughts and ideation
• Apathy
• Lethargy and low energy
• Lack of clarity of thought
• Inability to concentrate
• Loss of enjoyment from activities you use to enjoy
• Pessimism
• Loss of libido