Did you know...

* The number of deaths from suicide each year is approximately the same as the number of deaths from AIDS.

* Depression is not sadness. In depression, we lose the ability to feel any emotion strongly. The true opposite of depression is vitality - the ability to feel a full range of emotions, including happiness, joy, pride, but also including sadness and grief.

* The annual cost of depression to the U.S. economy is estimated at $44 billion. It is second only to cancer in terms of economic impact, higher than the cost of heart disease. Yet, there is no high-profile organization helping with research and treatment such as the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Diabetes Foundation, American Lung Association, to name but a few.

* Almost 20 percent of Americans have depression, most without knowing it. They just assume that they can't win, that their relationships are always trouble and that hopelessness, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and guilt are their lot in life.

* Research estimates that 10 percent of children will suffer a depressive episode before age 12, although as recently as 1980 it was thought that children did not suffer depression.

* In the past 25 years, while the general incidence of suicide has decreased, the rate of suicide for those between 15 and 19 has quadrupled.

* Many alcoholics treat an underlying depression with alcohol. Their depression makes sobriety doubly difficult. Many substance abuse treatment programs now refer their patients in recovery for treatment of depression.

* Procrastination is a hallmark of depression. The depressive puts things off until they seem insurmountable. This reinforces his feelings of self-blame and despair. But it also protects him from ever risking his absolute best effort at any task.

* Women are three times as likely to become depressed as men. No one knows for sure why this is the case. Theories suggest that women's social role has historically been less satisfactory, that their hormonal ebb and flow makes them more susceptible, that they are more likely to experience trauma, and that they are simply given social permission to express depression.

* Men are five times more likely than women to commit suicide. Instead of permitting themselves to feel the emotional symptoms of depression, men defend against them through dangerous, self-destructive or antisocial behaviors, by somatization (rushing to the ER with chest pains that turn out to be an anxiety attack), or by trying to treat them with alcohol. Many men feel they are faking it, making it up as they go along, always one misstep away from disaster. They try to reassure themselves by swaggering around the house, but they wonder if women aren't really laughing behind their backs. Many abusers use violence to express the frustrations and hopelessness that come from depression.

* Six million elderly suffer from some form of depression. Their depression tends to be dismissed as inevitable, but in fact is caused more by poor health and poor sleep than grief, loss or isolation. Among the elderly who commit suicide, almost 75 percent visit a doctor within a week before their deaths, but only in 25 percent of those cases did the physician recognize a depression.

* There is no organized self-help movement for depression, despite the proliferation of groups like AA, Cancervive, Better Breathers, Agoraphobics Together, groups for the bereaved, for the divorced, for children of divorce, etc. My book Undoing Depression is the first to present a model for a Depression Self-Help Group.

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·每年男人自殺的死亡人數大約與死于艾滋病的人數相差無幾。

·抑郁并不是悲傷。當人身患抑郁癥時，我們就不會在心理上感受到那么地堅強。跟抑郁完全相反的是充滿活力——能讓人們情緒飽滿——感受到快樂、愉悅、驕傲、當然也包括悲傷和憂郁。

·每年美國政府投入抑郁癥地花費估計在44億美圓左右。由于經濟的沖擊，此項投入僅次于投入癌癥的數額，高于心臟病的花銷。然而，卻很少有想美國心臟病協會，美國癌癥社區，糖尿病基金會，美國肺癌組織此類有名的官方機構來促進此疾病的研究和治療。

·差不多20%的美國人患有抑郁癥，然而大多數卻毫不知情. 他們只是不認為能夠戰勝這種心理疾病。因此他們的情感問題經常因此遭遇危機，生活中也常常被失望，失眠，慢性疲勞和罪惡感所困擾。

·研究表明大約10%的兒童在12歲之前都會經歷一個壓抑期，盡管早在1980人們就認為兒童不會身患抑郁癥。

·在過去的25年，盡管自殺的幾率已經降低不少，但是那些15到19歲的人群自殺的比率卻翻了兩番。

·大多數酗酒者基本上因為酒精都有或多或少一點的憂郁。他們身患抑郁讓他們的清醒更是難上加難。許多濫用藥品的機構現在表示他們對于抑郁癥的治療，病人的情況都有好轉。

·反應遲鈍是抑郁的一個標志表現。壓抑讓人們逃避問題知道非要面對不可。這增加了人們的自責感和壓抑感，但是它能使人們避免在盡全力不計后果做一些事情的時候遇到的風險。

·女人壓抑的幾率是男人的3倍,沒有人能確確地解釋原因。有理論認為女人的社會角色由于歷史的原因因而不是那么容易得到滿足，她們荷爾蒙的低潮和高潮使她們情緒更容易波動,因此她們更容易經歷心靈創傷，所以只要能夠被社會簡單地認可，她們就可以釋放壓抑。

·男人的自殺比例是女人的5倍之多。不是任憑壓抑的情感影響你，男人們通過一些危險，自殘或者反社會，軀體化行為(由于憂慮自殘而導致頸部受傷而送入急救室），或者嗜酒的行為來對抗壓抑的癥狀。很多男人認為他們在自欺欺人，一旦獨自一人就會犯錯，因此總是失足陷入壓抑的病痛之中。他們嘗試在自己房子周圍閑庭信步來使自己安心，但是他們真的也很在意是否有女人在背后偷笑他們。很多受苦者通過暴力發泄來自壓抑的失意和失望。

·600萬中年人都有不同程度的壓抑。他們的壓抑情感確實會消失，但是事實上大多都是由于不好的健康狀態和睡眠引起，而不是悲傷，失意，孤獨。在那些自殺的中年人中，大約75%在他們死前一周都看過醫生，但是只有25%被確診為壓抑。

·盡管有像AA，Cancervive，Better Breathers，Agoraphobics Together此類組織的不斷發展，還有那些幫助孤兒、離婚、家庭變故兒童等等此類組織，但是還沒有針對抑郁癥的自助運動。我的這本《解除壓抑》就是第一個呈現的針對抑郁癥自助運動的模板。