Depression

Lately I have been hearing of a lot of black women committing suicide. These stories saddened me for these women dealing with mental issues, and self hate suffered in silence. Their stories inspired me to write this article. Depression is defined as :

             1. severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings          of hopelessness and inadequacy.

             2. 

the act of lowering something or pressing something down.

This is the definition that you will find if you google the word Depression. In many cases of people with Chronic Illnesses you will find that many of them have experienced depression. This does not leave out Sickle Cell Disease. To show the intensity of this issue I picked the first four articles that came up on my google search and quoted the most important lines to me. One article stating that " around half of people living with sickle cell will become depressed at least once during their life ". This is a statistic that I can believe without a doubt. For me, looking at other peoples lives who did not have an illness like mine would make me incredibly depressed. I always thought people could tell that something was different with me, i would hide and not talk about anything. This is something that I personally deal with to this day and only about a year ago did I start to actually tell people about my disease. 

Of course in the articles that I did find that were researching depression in sickle cell stated that " much less is known about SCD( Sickle Cell disease) " which brings on a rant that I cant even start on right now! lol. It does sadden me that I couldn't find more in depth research or journals on the subject. I know personally, that depression and anxiety disorders are very prevalent in people with SCD. So the fact that there is not more research going in to help people who do suffer is terrible. I know when I was very depressed over my Disease in my young teens I had no one to turn to , and turn to finding other people on the internet who were going through the same things I was! It was a great comfort to me and we need to start encouraging each other. Life is hard enough and can easily get you down, without living with SCD. SCD just throws in another stress! If you are feeling down, and that you cant get up on your own PLEASE REACH OUT TO SOMEONE! I hate to see anyone but especially people of my kind succumbing to these mental issues. You are not alone, remember that! 

"Treatment of depression should be strongly considered to improve the quality of life and probably disease course in sickle cell patients." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12911250)

p.s i realized i didn't put a lot of quotes because I wanted to make this more uplifting! i will leave some links to articles if you would like to read more facts

THANK YOU AND BE STRONG !!!!

Morgan <3

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17389120

http://primarypsychiatry.com/psychiatric-issues-in-adults-with-sickle-cell-disease/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17389120

http://scinfo.org/problem-oriented-clinical-guidelines/specific-problems-depression

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  the act of lowering something or pressing something down