Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcasts, where we
Speaker 1: focus on all things mental health, personal development, and all
Speaker 1: the small decisions we can make to become the best
Speaker 1: possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Harden Bradford,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To find more information
Speaker 1: and to get resources, visit the website at Therapy for
Speaker 1: Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love
Speaker 1: listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not
Speaker 1: meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a
Speaker 1: licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me for session four of the Therapy for
Speaker 1: Black Girls podcast. I just want to start by think
Speaker 1: thank you for everyone who has been sharing the podcast
Speaker 1: and giving me feedback, subscribing and sharing it with your friends.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate all of the love that you're showing.
Speaker 1: You know, this has definitely raised my anxiety levels in
Speaker 1: ways that I really didn't see before releasing the podcast.
Speaker 1: But I'm super excited to continue giving black women a
Speaker 1: platform to discuss their mental health and prioritize their mental health.
Speaker 1: So this is one of these exercises and feeling the
Speaker 1: fear and doing it anyway, but I'm very encouraged by
Speaker 1: all the feedback I've been getting from you, so I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. So today, in the no co paid
Speaker 1: Needed segment, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: depression and what it is, and also some reasons why
Speaker 1: we might sometimes miss the signs of depression. So not
Speaker 1: just talking about the symptoms and signs of depression, but
Speaker 1: also why we miss it. So I want to start
Speaker 1: by giving some definitions um and symptoms to look out
Speaker 1: for in terms of depression. So I'm gonna list these things,
Speaker 1: and this comes straight from the D S and five.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be talking about five or more of
Speaker 1: the following symptoms that have been present during the same
Speaker 1: two week period and represent a change from previous functioning.
Speaker 1: At least one of the symptoms should be a depressed
Speaker 1: mood or a loss of interest or pleasure, and these
Speaker 1: symptoms should not be attributed to another medical condition and
Speaker 1: it should not be related to any substance use. So
Speaker 1: the first symptom is depressed mood most of the day,
Speaker 1: nearly every day, as indicated by other subjective report or
Speaker 1: observation made by others. The second symptom is markedly diminished
Speaker 1: interest in pleasure, interest or pleasure and all are almost
Speaker 1: all activities most of the day, nearly every day, So
Speaker 1: things that you really used to enjoy doing, you just
Speaker 1: notice that you don't have interests in those things anymore.
Speaker 1: The third symptom is significant weight loss when not dieting
Speaker 1: or gaining weight, or decrease or increase in your appetite
Speaker 1: nearly every day, so either gaining or losing a significant
Speaker 1: amount of weight or an increase or a decrease in
Speaker 1: your appetite. Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day, So insomnia
Speaker 1: is not being able to sleep, and hypersomnia is sleeping
Speaker 1: almost all the time. UM. Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly
Speaker 1: every day, so just kind of feeling really slow down, UM,
Speaker 1: moving much slower cognitively, you know, you maybe not thinking
Speaker 1: as quickly. UM fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.
Speaker 1: Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt, Diminished ability
Speaker 1: to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness it nearly every day.
Speaker 1: And recurrent thoughts of death, not just a fear of dying,
Speaker 1: but recurrent suicidal thoughts with a specific plan or even
Speaker 1: without a specific plan or having a suit uside attempt
Speaker 1: are a specific plan for committing suicide. So these symptoms
Speaker 1: must cause significant impairment in either social occupation or other
Speaker 1: important areas of functioning. And again, these symptoms should not
Speaker 1: be related to any other diagnosed or undiagnosed medical conditions
Speaker 1: and should not be related to a substance UM issue.
Speaker 1: So those are the clinical kinds of symptoms that we're
Speaker 1: wanting to look at. And if you have a UM
Speaker 1: a total of five or more of these symptoms, and
Speaker 1: that's when we would be looking at a diagnosis of
Speaker 1: perhaps a major depressive disorder UM. And I definitely will
Speaker 1: include include a link about all of these symptoms in
Speaker 1: the show notes some therapy for Black Girls dot Com
Speaker 1: session four, so you can kind of get a sense
Speaker 1: of what I'm talking about, and even a quiz that
Speaker 1: will allow you, if you think you're having some depressive symptoms,
Speaker 1: to tally those symptoms up for you and make UM
Speaker 1: some suggestions about whether you need to reach out to
Speaker 1: someone or not. So one of the reasons I think
Speaker 1: we sometimes missed the symptoms and the severity of depression
Speaker 1: is that historically black women have not had the luxury
Speaker 1: to kind of just be out from work or out
Speaker 1: from school for long periods of time, um, being home
Speaker 1: nonfunctional and depressed. And so I think sometimes we kind
Speaker 1: of get the misconception that depression only looks like I
Speaker 1: can't get out of bed, or somebody who's missing a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of work. And while they definitely can look
Speaker 1: like that, I think, um, culturally, black women have been
Speaker 1: pushed to have to work so hard that it doesn't
Speaker 1: often feel like staying home even if you are really depressed,
Speaker 1: is an option. So we see a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are walking around and maybe look pretty functional, but
Speaker 1: actually probably are pretty depressed. One of the second reasons
Speaker 1: I think we may be missing some of the symptoms
Speaker 1: and the severity of depression is that we engage in
Speaker 1: a lot of coping strategies that on the outside may
Speaker 1: look okay and healthy, but are really masking these, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes severe symptoms of depression. So we will do things
Speaker 1: like have a girl's night, you know, we call up
Speaker 1: our girls and say, well, I just had a rough week.
Speaker 1: Let's get together and drink some wine or something, um,
Speaker 1: you know, And so we are maybe not paying attention
Speaker 1: to actually how much alcohol we may be consuming, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes this is actually masking, um, the depressive symptoms.
Speaker 1: So we're using the alcohol to kind of um self
Speaker 1: soothed in some ways and self medicate. So hoping that
Speaker 1: the um, the alcohol or marijuana in a lot of cases, um,
Speaker 1: will kind of just help us to forget about whatever
Speaker 1: is is troubling us. In addition to alcohol and marijuana,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are also doing a
Speaker 1: lot of retail therapy. Um. So, you know, shopping spreeze
Speaker 1: and especially with online shopping now, it makes it really
Speaker 1: easy to kind of get just lost and clicking through
Speaker 1: our favorite boutiques in store is online, um, so we
Speaker 1: end up spending more money and you know, thinking that
Speaker 1: that will help us feel better when you know, in actuality,
Speaker 1: when the credit card bill comes at the end of
Speaker 1: the month, it may actually make you feel worse. Um.
Speaker 1: So retail therapy is definitely one of the ways that
Speaker 1: we're kind of coping in ways that may not be
Speaker 1: super healthy. Also, um, kind of throwing ourselves into sexual relationships.
Speaker 1: So not saying that sex is at all a bad thing,
Speaker 1: but if we're using sex as a way to cope
Speaker 1: and not deal with you know, what we're really struggling with.
Speaker 1: Then it definitely can turn into an unhealthy coping strategy.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us also missed some of
Speaker 1: the signs and symptoms of depression because it doesn't our
Speaker 1: symptoms may not look like the classic symptoms that I
Speaker 1: just read of um So I think sometimes for black
Speaker 1: women it can show up in like stomach aches or headaches,
Speaker 1: um you know, just random aches and pains, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times we will be more likely
Speaker 1: to maybe go to our physical or primary care doctor
Speaker 1: before we think, oh, am I really stressed about something?
Speaker 1: Is something really going on? And so sometimes our primary
Speaker 1: primary care doctor maybe the first person who will say, hey,
Speaker 1: you may want to talk to a therapist because it
Speaker 1: seems like something else may be going on there. So
Speaker 1: if we're having these random aches and pains, it actually
Speaker 1: could be a sign that there is a depression going on,
Speaker 1: but it is showing up in physical ways. I think
Speaker 1: another reason why we sometimes missed the symptoms of depression
Speaker 1: is because of this angry black woman stereotype. So there
Speaker 1: is a lot of space in society, um given for
Speaker 1: black women to be angry and upset and just irritable
Speaker 1: all the time, but there is not space typically for
Speaker 1: black women to just be sad, and so I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times the depression will show up looking
Speaker 1: like irritability as opposed to just sadness. And that kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to the point I mentioned about black
Speaker 1: women not you know typically and historically being given space
Speaker 1: to kind of just be out from work, Like we're
Speaker 1: not giving um the latitude to really kind of show
Speaker 1: up and be sad um. So we are walking around
Speaker 1: looking pretty functional but actually really dying inside. And the
Speaker 1: final reason I think we sometimes miss the symptoms and
Speaker 1: severity of depression is that we are using dizziness and
Speaker 1: productivity as a mass for the depression. So we are
Speaker 1: on this board and we just got this award and
Speaker 1: just got this promotion, and doing you know this at
Speaker 1: school and on campus, and I think sometimes we are
Speaker 1: running from thing to thing and not ever giving ourselves
Speaker 1: the space and the time to be silent and to
Speaker 1: really reflect on how we're feeling. And so again I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the packages look really pretty and put together
Speaker 1: on the outside, but on the inside, we just are
Speaker 1: not giving ourselves time to check in with ourselves about
Speaker 1: how we're really feeling. And so I'd like to encourage
Speaker 1: us all to really kind of take a step back
Speaker 1: from all of the projects we have going on, so
Speaker 1: do a check in with ourselves, you know, like, how
Speaker 1: is your mood really feeling? When I talked about the
Speaker 1: symptoms in the beginning of the of this episode, do
Speaker 1: you identify with any of those things? Again, there will
Speaker 1: be a quiz in the show notes for you to
Speaker 1: take so that you can kind of tally up any
Speaker 1: symptoms that you're experiencing that would give you some insight
Speaker 1: about whether it's actually time to talk with someone about
Speaker 1: the depressed mood that you may have been experiencing. So
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your feedback about the episode, if
Speaker 1: there are other things that you'd like to talk about
Speaker 1: related to depression, or if you'd like to share some
Speaker 1: of your experiences about you know, things you're feeling and
Speaker 1: you're not quite sure Um, if you should take the
Speaker 1: next step of talking to a therapist, definitely contact me. Um.
Speaker 1: You can reach me at podcast at therapy for Black
Speaker 1: Girls dot com. We don't have any listener questions this week,
Speaker 1: but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have,
Speaker 1: either about this episode or the previous episodes, or if
Speaker 1: you have just any general questions about mental health and
Speaker 1: therapy UM, you can definitely send those to the email
Speaker 1: address as well. Please make sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: social media. We can be found on Twitter the handle
Speaker 1: is Therapy for the Number four be Girls, and you
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Therapy for
Speaker 1: Black Girls. And again, please make sure that you're using
Speaker 1: our hashtag it's TBG in session, and please share this
Speaker 1: episode and other episodes with all of your friends and family.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation with you all
Speaker 1: real soon. Take get care The an oft