You may know that there are types of ADHD and anxiety, but did you know that there are types of depression too?

Indeed, there are at least 6 types of depression.

1. Major Depressive Disorder

Otherwise known as “major depression”, this type of depression usually occurs when you are depressed most of the time for most days of the week. This is the type of depression that most people probably think of first when “depression” is mentioned.

2. Persistent depressive disorder

This type of disorder used to be separated into two disorders: “dysthymia” or low-grade chronic depression, and major chronic depression. How you can tell if you have persistent depressive disorder is if you have had depression for two years or more, as its name suggests.

3. Bipolar disorder

Did you know that bipolar disorder comes under depression disorders? Yep, bipolar disorder is otherwise known as “manic depression”. Unlike your friends who may just have the occasional mood swings, people with bipolar disorders have extreme mood swings.

For people with bipolar disorders, they may experience “manic” episodes one moment. They may feel over-the-moon, and feel capable of anything. In moments of impulse, they may feel compelled to do actions that may seem fun at the time, but have excruciating consequences later on. After this, they may just as quickly spiral into “depressive” episodes the next moment, which may result in them having all the symptoms of major depression.

4. Seasonal Affective Disorder

Literally abbreviated SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder can be diagnosed if you are more affected than the winter months than normal. This disorder is a type of seasonal disorder that occurs every year at around the same time, starting in fall or winter and ending around the spring or summer time.

5. Psychotic Depression

This kind of depression combines the symptoms of major depression with “psychotic” symptoms, like hallucinations (seeing or hearing things , delusions (false beliefs) and paranoia (an unusually heightened sense of alertness and cautiousness around others).

6. Post-partum depression

Lastly, this kind of depression afflicts new mothers who have gone through childbirth weeks or months ago. Some new mothers may attest to this, and the causes of this kind of depression are a complex mix of chemical, psychological and social.

7. Other kinds of depression

There are many other subtypes of depression like i) atypical depression, ii) premenstrual dysphoric depression, and iii) ‘situational’ depression. However, these are types of depression are less common. If you would like to find out more about these types of depression, or basically find out more about depression as a whole, click here

Now that you’ve learned more about the symptoms of depression, let’s find out more about the people around the world afflicted with depression.