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Do the Signs of Depression Between Men and Women Differ?

Many people across the world suffer with depression, but do men and women have different signs of depression?

By Jacqueline HanikehPublished 6 years ago 6 min read
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Many people suffer from depression — it's a common mental health issue. It also comes with a lot of symptoms that are difficult to cope with, like migraine and body aching. And most of the time, the presence of depression is questionable. But, there are times when depression does follow up from a tragic and stressful event that occurred sometime in a person's life.

Even though both genders can deal with depression, is it true that signs of the mental health problems are different between the two? Can men deal with depression way differently than women can? In fact, it's true — men and women show different signs of depression. See a few of the differences between the genders.

When feeling depressed, women tend to overthink more.

When it comes to signs of depression, more than men, women overthink things a lot and blame themselves for almost any action that they do or even actions that others do.

A woman will start thinking negatively towards herself — bringing her ego down. She’ll begin to view herself as useless and worthless and overthinking can cause these negative thoughts to increase more and more.

Men dealing with depression are more likely go to alcohol or other substances to cope.

It’s hard to deal with depression and many of us try to find ways to avoid feeling down, both men and women. But men are more commonly known to head for alcohol and other substances to cope.

Constantly binge-drinking alcohol can lead him to become an alcoholic — he becomes attached and finds it difficult to let go of the booze since it’s his only escape from depression.

This can go for cigarettes and other drugs, too. Doing too much of it can lead to an addiction, or possibly worse, leading him to a fatal overdose that might cost him his life. That’s why taking antidepressants and other medications to help depression is the better direction.

Men's symptoms for depression may be harder to recognize.

It’s hard to tell if a man has signs of depression. Most of the time, he won’t have any signs or facial expressions that would give away that he's depressed.

Sometimes, if a man is under severe depression, he might not have the slightest tell that will give him away.A man’s actions usually says it all, more than his appearance and expressions.

Women with depression are more likely to have an eating disorder.

It’s common for a woman with depression to have an eating disorder.

Women can constantly have loss of appetite, because the depression is canceling the nerves the brain would have with the stomach, signaling that it’s hungry. And loss of appetite can lead to loss of weight and the woman can be dangerously frail and weak — leaving nothing but skin and bones. Or something more fatal.

However, there are also women who continuously need to eat in order to forget about their depression. Just as how men cope by alcohol and drugs, women tend to lean towards food. The foods will most likely be junk and sugary sweets — possibly leading to weight gain and obesity.

Men are more likely to commit suicide.

Even though both men and women with depression do have suicidal thoughts, men are the ones more likely to go for it.

If nothing they are doing or using is helping them deal with their depression, and the medication isn’t helping at all and there’s no other way to help, men do consider suicide.

At this point, the depression becomes a critical mental health problem that can even be painful through migraines and body aches. There are men who don’t know where else to turn to, but suicide.

And most of them who attempt it succeed more than women. But suicide is never the answer to depression — there are plenty of other ways to help with the mental problem. Ask those who are close to you and your doctor for more help.

Women with depression are more physically expressive of their emotions.

Since men don’t show many signs of depression through expressions, women are the ones who are more obvious about their mental health. Most women appear to be more upset, rarely smiling and laughing, and are almost always negative towards themselves.

There are even moments where they’ll randomly cry or suddenly become upset about nothing.

Depressed women respond to stressful events differently.

Just like how women are more obvious about depression with their sudden weeping outbursts, they’re more likely to be intensely effected by events than men.

Whether they went through a breakup, lost their job, lost of a loved one, etc. Some depressed women tend to take the news harder than usual. Since they’re in a depressed state, they’re already feeling down — leading the stressful events to pile onto that depression and giving the woman a harder time.

Men tend to be more angry when depressed.

Many women are mainly distressed and shaken by depression, however, some men tend to take it from a different route — anger. One of the signs of depression men have more than women.

There is a high percentage of men dealing with depression who are almost always angry with nearly anything.The smallest incidences can turn out to be something huge and worth being pissed off about. But bigger and more serious occurrences can really have cause them to explode.

There also have been cases of abuse and violence by those who are depressed.If this is you most of the time, try taking deep breathes and clearing your mind. Even walk away from the situation to avoid an outburst.

Men tend to leave home more frequently.

There are women who also do this, but men are seen doing it the most. Home is also a place to (sometimes) be alone — that’s where thoughts start flooding in.

In this case, men would want to escape that alone and quietness by going out and having people around them to distract them from their depression. Such as going to the bar, the club, lounges — somewhere with a lot of people and noise to block out the depression.

Some men even stay at work later just to avoid going home and dealing with their thoughts and depression.

Both men and women respond to antidepressants differently.

It’s possible that antidepressants don’t work on both men and women, depending on the person and his/her body.

However, it’s possible for the medication to affect a woman’s hormones, female reproductive hormones, menstruation, and anything else that women deal with daily. Since antidepressants are there to prevent a woman from coping with depression, her hormones and emotions can be affected while on the medication.

depression
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About the Creator

Jacqueline Hanikeh

Reading good literature plays a huge role in my life — and so does online shopping and wine.

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