October is Depression Awareness and Mental Health Screening Month. As awareness of depression and mental illness grows, stigmas are confronted, and many traditional prejudices fall away, people are increasingly able to speak about mental health issues with greater ease and openness than in the past. Being able to say, “I have depression” or “I suffer from mental health issues” is now – and thankfully - considered more an acknowledgement than an “admission.” In many ways law enforcement has been a leader by coming to see police officers as first responders not only to crime but also as part of the critical front line in the provision of mental health services to people in crisis. Accordingly, officers are better trained and educated than ever before, with younger officers much more open to their place on this front line. This has been remarkably beneficial for the communities they serve.
Increasingly, even the need for officers to be alert to the signs and symptoms of depression and mental illness in themselves and their peers has been embraced. The psychological risks of a law enforcement career are being taken more seriously, options for officers in need of help are being developed and implemented, and sincere efforts to reduce stigma are being made. We salute this! Still, a lot of myths surrounding depression remain, as well as negative biases towards people who have depression (and other mental illnesses). Some continue to believe it is something that classifies someone as emotionally weak or somehow lesser of a person. Others believe that a diagnosis of a depressive disorder will disqualify them from a law enforcement career, is more than it is or somehow on par with more serious and often permanently debilitating psychoses, or cannot be “fixed” through therapy or medical intervention. Myths are dangerous when facts can easily counter them, and it is our hope to further reduce stigma.
Depression is far too common to be embarrassed by, and far, far too serious not to take seriously.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Health: “Major depression is a serious medical illness affecting 15 million American adults, or approximately 5-8 percent of the adult population in a given year. Unlike normal emotional experiences of sadness, loss or passing mood states, major depression is persistent and can significantly interfere with an individual's thoughts, behavior, mood, activity and physical health. Among all medical illnesses, major depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States.”
Research into depression is extensive and ongoing and has illuminated both the scope of the problem and its roots in genetic and biological etiology. In addition to what has long been understood about the biochemical aspects of depression – that depressed people have a lack of, or overproduction of, certain chemicals needed in the brain to be released into the bloodstream to stabilize a person’s mood, and that without the proper chemical balance a person’s mood will fluctuate and go to lows from which a person cannot rebound back without the proper medical help and interventions – we now know individuals coping with depression have a higher level of stress hormones present in their bodies, and that brain scans of depressed patients show decreased activity in some areas of the brain. There are other types of serious depressive disorders, as well, such as bipolar disorder, dysthymia (a chronic low-grade depression often lasting for months or years), and adjustment disorders with depressed mood. Considering the number of people suffering from these disorders the number of people touched by depression grows by millions more.
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