Thread: Can Someone be Depressed Without Knowing it?

Is it possible for someone to be affected by depression without even knowing that they're depressed?

Absolutely.
I spent the best part of 7 years thinking that I was just "down" ¹ and that I'd soon cheer up.
It never happened.
Fortunately a friend and a couple of family members finally convinced me to raise the subject of depression with my doctor (after me declaring "Don't me silly, everybody knows I take things in my stride") and I "scored" 26 out of 27 on the basic indicators test.
Yup, I was suffering from depression.

1 For various reasons, not least of which was a divorce, a couple of deaths in the family and being made redundant all within a six month period.

Some people are also genetically prone to clinical depression, which is a chronic brain chemical imbalance. I might suffer from it, not sure.

Talking to a psychologist or psychiatrist would be a very smart idea to anyone who thinks they might have depression before it leads on to very serious problems. Depression caught early can be controlled but unfortunately many people don't get a check up. It's easy to become fooled that people can "control" their depression but it will only get worse. these things I can firmly attest to for I suffer from bipolar disorder and manic depression but they are both under pretty good control due to proper medical help and not being afraid to talk to the doctors about my problems.

Yes, my now diagnosed clinical depression was first spotted by my parents and friends. I was under the assumption that I merely had a dismal world view.

Yes, it certainly is. In fact, it is probably more often than not. My psyche nurse of a mother told me I was, I was, (and still am, to an extent,) pretty skeptical. She told me depressed people generally don't know until they are told.

That's very easy with PTSD... and when Doctors ignore your symptoms and say "nothing's wrong" then you aren't going to get the help you need.

The sad thing is the Neurology isn't much of a help. Sure you can map what the brain is doing, but the major problem is not every pathway in the human brain is standard. Furthermore, the brain will function the same way in very different situational contexts. What you can never quantify with neurology is motive... and that's something that can still be skewed if the Doctors do it wrong. Even with neurology, it's still not a precise science... and you can never dismiss the idea you've been tampered with. The problem is sometimes you can't get people to listen to you.

Hello Texas Bard79 and welcome to the forum.

I invite you to start a new thread on this subject and begin a current discussion rather than this older thread of which contributors may no longer be active on this forum.

At least one of the problems in getting diagnosis and help are long waiting periods for assessment due to a chronic shortage of doctors in all fields in my location.