What Anyone Who Hasn't Had Depression Should Know | MedCircle

[Music] you can watch the best parts of this series at Med circle comm tens of millions of people in the US are diagnosed with depression each year yet it is tragically misunderstood even by those who suffer from it New York city-based psychiatrist dr. su Varma is a leading expert on the condition so med circle travelled to Manhattan to help you the viewer understand the condition what causes it how to cope with it and much more welcome to med circles debunking depression series thank you so much for doing this thank you thanks for having me before we were rolling I was saying out of all of the series we've done this is the one I have been most looking forward to because when you hear mental health you'll automatically think depression yes it affects so many people why is that you know 16 million Americans are affected by this and it's about 7% of Americans and that's just who's diagnosed so just think about the number of people who are out there that actually never get diagnosed by doctor which is probably half I would say depression is one of the most common illnesses around the world period it's a very expensive illness to have if it's not treated we know that in the workforce it costs about 200 billion dollars per year in terms of people losing days so absenteeism presenteeism which is a funny word which is you're present but you're not productive and then the medical costs that are involved so it's a it's considered by the World Health Organization as a major cause of disability it's going to be in the top two pretty soon by 2020 so it's something really important I love the fact that you guys are doing this it is one of the most common mental illnesses one of the least understood I think I think people think of when they think of mental illness they do think of depression but they also think of scary people you're hearing voices and that's not at all the case this is the average person who's going to work who has a family somebody that you can relate to it's your neighbor it's your friend it's your boss it's your co-worker it's your kid it's you and you don't know it because you're like but I can function and you know I can't tell you how many people call me and say thought in my life that I would see a psychiatrist that's only for crazy people but you know call me crazy but we all got something right everybody's got something you look at Ang's ayat e depression substance abuse trauma we've all got something when you mentioned that there's 200 billion dollars lost each year because the depression is that correct yes are the the founder of net circle Doug Cole Beth is a huge advocate about having workplaces that address mental health issues don't attach it with a big stigma and provide resources it's awesome if a it's the right thing to do yeah and be because you don't want to lose out totally on productivity with your importance totally but people think depression is not worthy of that yes you know if you got if you got sick and got the flu yes then maybe you should call it but not because you have to depression yes and you know Lynn last year there was this great tweet that went viral about a person asking their boss for a mental health day and the boss saying like please take as many as you need and it was the first time that we were looking at this as an illness and when I tried to describe it to patients so big part of what I think that a job of a psychiatrist or mental health therapist should be is education and normalizing telling people that depression is an illness just like any other and when people say I feel so bad I can't go to work I can't meet the standards they beat themselves up and that is a symptom of depression and I ask people would you beat yourself up about having the flu what do you mean well okay if you've 103-degree fever you have chills you have myalgias you're shivering you're having muscle aches and pains you can go to work would you call out yeah absolutely would you blame yourself not at all what would you do get help why can't you think of depression in the same way it is a mental flu okay so bear with me a lot of people say what do you mean mental flu this is a serious medical illness and that's what I'm trying to do when I'm saying that I'm trying to normalize it and I'm trying to get people to think of it you would not blame yourself you would not blame somebody else you would not say oh just get over the flu what's wrong with you buddy wake up wake up what's wrong with you it's the same way it's one of the calm it's about depression is it is something that self-induced oh you're just choosing to be sad really who the hell chooses to be said I don't choose to be sad it's something that happens to you and we'll talk about you know variety of reasons but I want people to think of depression as a medical illness and medical illness that just the way you would call out just the way you would need help just the way you would get a disability leave if you needed it you know a lot of times people say oh I don't want people to abuse the system now I don't want to let them know that they have access or they have ability to get disability if they need it for depression and I would tell you that 9 out of 10 times in my personal experience people do not abuse the system P most people that I work with I would say are highly functional competent individuals who want to get better and I would say that I would say that to be true of a lot of people I don't think people are trying to cheat the system so if you're a boss if you run a team I would say be compassionate if somebody says I need a day off you are going to get there by and you're gonna get their loyalty you're going to get them to stay at their company if you make them feel like you give a crap about them yes right yeah wouldn't you want to stay in a place that of course the I ran a poll on my Instagram okay not a scientific poll by any means but I asked two questions I said have you ever suffered from depression and I specifically use the word sufferer for a reason and then I asked I pulled the audience asking them do you know somebody who has suffered from depression I might get it by a pointer to these percentages wrong but 94% of people said yes I have suffered from depression Wow and this was hundreds or maybe thousands or 2,000 people Wow 98% said they knew somebody so when you told me 16% mm-hmm I have been diagnosed not I'm sure that some more accurate no but I still thought there's probably so many totally totally that are suffering and silence yes which is so scary yes you know only about a third of people who ever get diagnosed with depression ever end up getting treatment right so these are only the people who come and say that they have depression or that somebody provider smart enough to say I wonder if you're experiencing depression right only a third of those people so we're talking about a subset of a subset so and if you add all things together like we said depression anxiety substance trauma like all of the mental illnesses combined I would say easily like 60 to 70% of people well at some point in their life and I know that that is you know short of shocking but if you add everything together and how many people are not diagnosed I would say it's a very large number let's talk about you why should anybody listen to you when it comes to depression who are you okay so I'm a board-certified psychiatrist I've been in practice over 10 years I trained at NYU Medical Center bellevigne which is one of the best hospitals Bellevue was actually the first public hospital in the country first maternity ward a lot of history there there's a great new show on NBC might've heard about it New Amsterdam that's based on it and it was a wonderful place for training and I had a lot of exposure to a variety of population so working in inpatient outpatient psychoanalytic training psychodynamic training CBT therapy which is something I do in my practice so as I mentioned I'm board-certified I'm on faculty at NYU I'm a clinical assistant professor and I teach medical students how to interview patients teaching them about the Mental Status exam what to pick up which is a big part of psychiatry which is obviously there's a subjective part when you meet somebody they're telling you how they feel and then there's the objective part how are they making eye contact are they moving a lot you can tell a lot about it's a patient just by looking at them so it's the physical exam if you will of psychiatry I also teach some cycle form courses I am very actively involved in the American Psychiatric Association it's one of the largest organizations about 40,000 members worldwide and I am a fellow of the American Psychiatric organization which is sort of an honor and I'm on there Public Affairs Committee and I also do a lot of speaking and writing for the the media so you know I have external you don't do a lot of stuff and I'm a progress goodness alright so but why depression you truly are an expert on that mental health genre yeah what is it that attracted you to that John so I'm so fascinated by depression because I'm fascinated my happiness right and to me there that is so great interrupting something just really hits me because I don't want people to miss it where you just say yes I'm so fascinated by depression because they're so fascinated with happiness yes this will explain that so I think that we all have this amazing potential right to truly be joyful to truly be content and to truly be happy and to me depression is something that happens that tries to steal your joy away but if you don't allow it to it doesn't have to be that way right I think most of us are even if we're not depressed clinically we're probably somewhere in the middle you know living functional but are we optimal right so I don't look at and I think traditionally psychiatry and medicine Western allopathic medicine looks at disease right it's looking at what's wrong with you was looking at the absence of health not that there's an on/off switch with health it's not black and white but people are looking at what's missing I don't want to take you just from dysfunctional back to functional when I when I with my clients in my practice I want to take you from functional to optimal who are you truly meant to be like I really people say well I don't have any talent no I don't through that I don't buy that at all and people say I'm not good at anything absolutely not everybody has some really really beautiful raw talent you can be the best chef in the world maybe you play golf maybe you garden maybe you're a painter whatever it is but you're good at something and really just unwrapping your gifts and depression is something that gets in the way mental illness gets in the way it's not who you are I don't think it defines you I think that people are so much more than their depression and as a psychiatrist I'm a big believer in positive psychiatry and positive psychology which is looking at optimism and these are some of our innate qualities optimism resilience humor flexibility coping mechanisms these are all things that we have and I feel like depression if you're able to sort of scratch that away you see this really beautiful shiny gem like you're meant to be what your raw talents are and everybody has something and it's different so depression is fascinating to me because I think if you can push that away it's an entry point most people won't go out of their way and say I'm going to find myself a happiness coach but depression makes you look at something that's not working and that's kind of getting in the way of you being fabulous so it's a way that somebody comes in for treatment and then the doctor is like hey by the way did you notice you're also really good at all these other things have you ever thought about that so I don't look it I know that every practitioner has a different way of looking at things I look at it it's okay that's what got you in and I know that you're only thinking about not being depressed let's get you not depressed but also let's get you fabulous because you are and it's underneath it the title of your book should be depression is getting in the way of making you fabulous but I love looking at depression as a key to happiness because if we can solve it or tackle it we can live our most optimal life yes that's really hopeful I love that message what is not being discussed about depression that we should be discussing so so much of Western medicine is about breaking things sorry so much about Western medicine is about fixing things when they're broken but my question is why do we wait that long right why can't we talk about prevention and I don't think that we in Western medicine focus enough on preventing depression I don't think we talked enough about natural treatments I don't think we talked enough about how to support people who have depression and not blaming people so I feel like if there are things that you can do to prevent depression in the first place we are gonna be saving the two hundred billion dollars that we've been talking about that's huge I've never of all the mental health conversations I've had I've never once heard preventing all about treating yeah I don't remember everything hearing about preventing depression yes and you know one of the public health epidemics crises that we're facing as a nation right now is loneliness and we have people the suicide rates have gone up 30% in 30 years according to the CDC and one of the reasons is because we live in a culture of self-reliance we're not appreciating our hard-wired nature which is to help one another to live in communities when you have society that's changing and we have technology we have social media we have all of these really wonderful inventions which are meant to make our lives easier and for the most part they do they're meant to connect us and in some ways they can but if we're not if understanding or fundamental nature we are going to be causing more harm than good and I think depression is yes depression rates have increased maybe they've increased because we're simply detecting them maybe because we're more open about it there's less stigma there still is but less so so it's very possible that we're just detecting things that have always been there but I also realize that we're not living in the communities with the same support system that we once used to extended families I really am a proponent of preventing depression in the first place when you get the depression how to fix it quickly I'm a big believer in evidence-based treatments trying understanding the role of medication but also understanding that it is just one part of a very comprehensive treatment plan and getting all of the other ducks in the row so that once you if you decide a lot of people decide I don't see medication in my future I don't want to be on it for 20 years what else can I do I want to help you get buoyant right so like when we can talk about medication I know I'm talking a lot so you just I love it this is the whole reason you're here okay so when people come in to me may like a lot of times people know that I do therapy so a big part of my practice is cognitive behavioral therapy and you know using bits and pieces informed from sort of psychodynamic theory and interpersonal so there's a variety of different techniques but I would say sort of more cognitive behavioral using some mindfulness but people come in they say I like the fact that you're an MD so you had asked me about what makes you special and I would say that being a psychiatrist being a physician is a very interesting training or expertise to have because in medical school we have to do internal medicine neurology surgery ob/gyn your Pediatrics or you're doing every rotation in all aspects of Medicine so when I see a person I'm not just really thinking about your meant your mental health I'm thinking about your physical health through Medical Health I'm thinking very globally about your health in general and having that medical background allows me to look at all the other things that could be causing depression so there's a lot of medical biological causes of depression when somebody first comes to me I do a very thorough comprehensive evaluation and I ask about your medical problems and there's like a long list I can you know tell you eight or ten common medical problems that end up causing mental health problems but having this sort of medical background allows me to see that yes medication is one part of it but like I said it's it's just the tip of the iceberg there's there's so much more to mental health treatment and prevention than I think a typical prescription pad and a lot of times psychiatrists I've heard people will come in and they'll say this person fell asleep on me unfortunately or I left with the prescription in ten minutes and that is so so dangerous you know primary care doctors I love them because most people will first get diagnosed or prescribed by a primary care doctor the problem is the primary care doctor is also trying to assess your blood pressure heart problems diabetes cholesterol and they might have 30 seconds for your mental health and what I tell people is be careful of these doorknob conversations doorknob conversations are like the doctor has gotten up their hands on the doorknob they're about to leave and you're like oh by the way I want to kill myself and you're like wait what right so like no you know scheduled a proper mental health visit and and and if if that's where you're going to go to the primary care doctor but you know I I would love to talk to you about the problems about getting medication from a primary health doctor some point well episode six is all about treatment okay so we're going to go in-depth there this is so huge and so big because depression is a universal issue if it hasn't affected you you probably know somebody who has but real quick what would you want someone who suffers from depression to get out of this series do something about it it is absolutely very treatable you may not feel like it you might feel hopeless right now trust me that is a symptom of depression what you're thinking it may not be reality and often it's not if you're feeling helpless and hopeless that is your depression do not listen to it if it tells you your life is not worth living you're nobody you're the world would be a better place without you nobody needs you do not buy into those voices in your head that are telling you that you're nobody and that you're nothing and that it's never going to get better when people are depressed and they feel put they feel pessimistic and the three P's of pessimism is taking things personally thinking that bad things are pervasive and thinking that they're permanent it's all my fault I'm never gonna get better my whole life sucks everything about me sucks so the three P's of pessimism recognize that that's what you're experiencing you do not you are not alone you're not isolated sixteen million people in America every year are diagnosed it is a medical illness and it is a treatable mounted medical illness yes what about for the supporters of somebody with depression don't give up on them the worst thing you can do is say I've done everything I can because no if they're still depressed you probably if you love this person you probably haven't done everything that you can at the same time recognize that you also need to do some self care for yourself and there's a healthy balance between spending time with a depressed person and getting them help and recognizing that at the end of the day you're also human right so be careful of any codependent tendencies which may be I want to fix this person and why aren't they getting better and if they're not getting better it's my fault don't blame yourself don't blame yourself for the depression spend time with them don't avoid them but also recognize that you're human you might need a break from their company frequently people when they hang out with other people do get depressed and there's something called stress contagion and it's look we're human beings right so we we love is a part of what we experience so if you're if you're depressed I'm hanging out with you a lot yeah I might feel depressed as a result but that doesn't mean that I'm gonna give up on you right that means that the best thing you can do is also connect a person to a mental health provider yes right so don't give up my in summary what supporters can do I would say don't give up know that there's hope you need to take care of yourself and and and sort of take breaks when needed and get them the help that they need thanks for watching your next step is to go to med circle comm and finish watching this series there you can also access other series and get actionable advice and simple explanations continue your mental health journey at Med circle calm and I'll see you there [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 263,417

Keywords: depression, signs of depression, clinical depression, depression symptoms, major depression, symptoms of depression, what is depression, depression and anxiety, severe depression, manic depression, mental health, psych2go depression, mental illness, major depressive disorder, depression treatment, depressed, anxiety, sad, psychology, health, what causes depression, how to overcome depression, depression test, mental, sadness, stress, mental health awareness, am i depressed, medcircle

Id: rcyN-y9oHPE

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019