- Listen to a young woman talking about her depression and decide if the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
T | F
☐ | ☐ 1. Being bored requires energy.
☐ | ☐ 2. Depressed people think that everything is temporary.
☐ | ☐ 3. Becoming depressed is a slow phenomenon.
☐ | ☐ 4. All the symptoms are easily interpreted as an illness.
☐ | ☐ 5. The speaker is at work at the moment.
☐ | ☐ 6. She cannot stay in bed for long.
☐ | ☐ 7. The most serious symptom is hyperactivity.
☐ | ☐ 8. Getting up is very hard.
☐ | ☐ 9. Depressed people don’t care about personal hygiene.
☐ | ☐ 10. For many days during the last month, she didn’t have a shower.
2. Answer the following questions.
- What happens during a depressive episode?
- What are the symptoms of clinical depression?
- Is clinical depression transmitted from parents to children?
- What are the symptoms of bipolar disorder?
- What happens during a manic episode?
- What is the difference between a panic attack and panic disorder?
- What do people with panic disorder worry about?
- What are the symptoms of panic disorder?
3. Decide if the following symptoms refer to bipolar disorder (BD), clinical depression (CD) or panic disorder (PD).
| Symptoms | BD | CD | PD |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Dizziness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 2. Faintness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 3. Helplessness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 4. Hopelessness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 5. Hyperactivity | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 6. Irritability | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 7. Sadness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 8. Terror | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 9. Weakness | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
| 10. Insomnia | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH CLINICAL DEPRESSION
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, suffered from severe and debilitating moments of depression, described in his biography.
Charles Dickens had an unbelievably difficult childhood, which saw the author working in a boot factory and living on his own when his father was thrown in prison. He used to fall into depressions with the start of each new novel.
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain was one of the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) to lead the world in the defeat of Hitler in WW2. In some of his letters, he wrote he suffered from black dog, Churchill’s term for severe and serious depression.
GLOSSARY
to experience: provare, passare attraverso
heart attack: infarto
helplessness: senso d’impotenza
hopelessness: disperazione
mood swing: balzo d’umore
to occur: verificarsi, accadere
pounding: che palpita
to predict: prevedere
to strike: colpire
stroke: ictus
sweatiness: sudorazione
warning: preavviso, avvertimento