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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·每年男人自杀的死亡人数大约与死于艾滋病的人数相差无几。

·抑郁并不是悲伤。当人身患抑郁症时，我们就不会在心理上感受到那么地坚强。跟抑郁完全相反的是充满活力——能让人们情绪饱满——感受到快乐、愉悦、骄傲、当然也包括悲伤和忧郁。

·每年美国政府投入抑郁症地花费估计在44亿美圆左右。由于经济的冲击，此项投入仅次于投入癌症的数额，高于心脏病的花销。然而，却很少有想美国心脏病协会，美国癌症社区，糖尿病基金会，美国肺癌组织此类有名的官方机构来促进此疾病的研究和治疗。

·差不多20%的美国人患有抑郁症，然而大多数却毫不知情. 他们只是不认为能够战胜这种心理疾病。因此他们的情感问题经常因此遭遇危机，生活中也常常被失望，失眠，慢性疲劳和罪恶感所困扰。

·研究表明大约10%的儿童在12岁之前都会经历一个压抑期，尽管早在1980人们就认为儿童不会身患抑郁症。

·在过去的25年，尽管自杀的几率已经降低不少，但是那些15到19岁的人群自杀的比率却翻了两番。

·大多数酗酒者基本上因为酒精都有或多或少一点的忧郁。他们身患抑郁让他们的清醒更是难上加难。许多滥用药品的机构现在表示他们对于抑郁症的治疗，病人的情况都有好转。

·反应迟钝是抑郁的一个标志表现。压抑让人们逃避问题知道非要面对不可。这增加了人们的自责感和压抑感，但是它能使人们避免在尽全力不计后果做一些事情的时候遇到的风险。

·女人压抑的几率是男人的3倍,没有人能确确地解释原因。有理论认为女人的社会角色由于历史的原因因而不是那么容易得到满足，她们荷尔蒙的低潮和高潮使她们情绪更容易波动,因此她们更容易经历心灵创伤，所以只要能够被社会简单地认可，她们就可以释放压抑。

·男人的自杀比例是女人的5倍之多。不是任凭压抑的情感影响你，男人们通过一些危险，自残或者反社会，躯体化行为(由于忧虑自残而导致颈部受伤而送入急救室），或者嗜酒的行为来对抗压抑的症状。很多男人认为他们在自欺欺人，一旦独自一人就会犯错，因此总是失足陷入压抑的病痛之中。他们尝试在自己房子周围闲庭信步来使自己安心，但是他们真的也很在意是否有女人在背后偷笑他们。很多受苦者通过暴力发泄来自压抑的失意和失望。

·600万中年人都有不同程度的压抑。他们的压抑情感确实会消失，但是事实上大多都是由于不好的健康状态和睡眠引起，而不是悲伤，失意，孤独。在那些自杀的中年人中，大约75%在他们死前一周都看过医生，但是只有25%被确诊为压抑。

·尽管有像AA，Cancervive，Better Breathers，Agoraphobics Together此类组织的不断发展，还有那些帮助孤儿、离婚、家庭变故儿童等等此类组织，但是还没有针对抑郁症的自助运动。我的这本《解除压抑》就是第一个呈现的针对抑郁症自助运动的模板。