Facts & Quotes About Depression
“Major depressive disorder (MDD), a highly debilitating and widely distributed illness in the general population, is ranked by the World Health Organization as among the most burdensome diseases to society. Thus, nearly 30 million of the US adult population may be affected by MDD, with approximately one-third being classified as severely depressed. Severe depression has profound social and economic consequences, with individuals often experiencing high rates of complicating comorbidities and mortality (e.g. increased risk and poor outcome of cardiovascular disease and suicidality), reduced quality of life, and significant personal and societal costs due to decreased work productivity, increased absenteeism, and utilization of health care services.”
– Charles B. Nemeroff, The Burden of Severe Depression, 2006
“Six million American men will be diagnosed with depression this year. But millions more suffer silently, unaware that their problem has a name or unwilling to seek treatment. The result is a hidden epidemic of despair that is destroying marriages, disrupting careers, filling jail cells, clogging emergency rooms and costing society billions of dollars in lost productivity and medical bills. It is also creating a cohort of children who carry the burden of their fathers’ pain for the rest of their lives.”
– Julie Scelfo, Men and Depression: Facing Darkness. Newsweek, 2007
“I was diagnosed with clinical depression about five years ago. Depression is a physical illness. With any bad situations I’d experienced before – a bad game or my two previous divorces – I got over them. This time I just could not get out of the hole. The anxiety attacks were frequent and extensive. I had weight loss, which I’d never had before. I couldn’t stop crying. And if I wasn’t crying, I was angry, bitter, hateful and mean-spirited. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t concentrate. It just got crazy.”
– Terry Bradshaw on his experience with depression, USA Today 2004