Depression

Depression medically encompasses a large variety of different mood disorders whose common features are a sad, empty, or irritable mood co-occurring with bodily and cognitive changes that significantly disrupt an individual's ability to function.¹These different mood disorders have different durations, timing, or presumed origin. However, differentiating normal sadness/grief from a depressive episode requires a careful and meticulous examination. For example: the death of a loved one may cause great suffering, but it does not typically produce a medically defined depressive episode.¹

Within the context of psychoactive substance usage, depressivity is often accompanied by other coinciding effects such as anxiety, irritability and dysphoria. It is most commonly induced through prolonged chronic stimulant or depressant use, during the withdrawal symptoms of almost any substance, or during the comedown/crash of a stimulant. It is associated specifically with higher alcohol consumption.⁴However, it is worth noting that substance-induced depressivity is often much shorter lasting than clinical depression, usually subsiding once the effects or withdrawal symptoms of a drug have ended.

If you suspect that you are experiencing symptoms of depression, it is highly recommended to seek out therapeutic medical attention and/or a support group. Additionally, you may want to read our depression reduction effect and Psychedelic Therapy review.

It is worth noting that depression as an effect has an unfortunately non-specific definition. It is due to this that there are a number of other relevant terms which should be taken into account when trying to understand this state of mind. These are listed and described below:

Depressivity

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is medically recognized as discrete episodes of depressivity lasting at least two weeks (although most episodes last considerably longer).¹This is the traditional characterization for the term medical term depression.

Dysthymia is medically recognized as a chronic major depressive disorder and is typically diagnosed after two years of continued mood disturbance.¹²

Acute depressivity (colloquially referred to as "feeling depressed"), when indicated by either self-report or observation made by others, encompasses the following symptoms:

For a diagnosis of major depressive disorder to be accurate, the symptoms must cause readily observable distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning for an extended period of time. The episode must not be better explained by a different mood disorder. The symptoms also cannot be attributable to the physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition.