Warning sign of suicide

Suicide most often occurs when stressors and health issues converge to create an experience of hopelessness and despair. Depression can lead to suicide. The most frequently identified warning signs have included thoughts of suicide or self-harm; obsessions with death; writing about death; sudden changes in personality, behavior, eating, or sleeping patterns; feelings of guilt; and decreased academic or work performance.

Suicide is a death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result of the behavior. The warning signs of suicide change with age.

Warning signs of suicide in children and teens may include preoccupation with death or suicide or a recent breakup of a relationship. When symptoms of depression include pervasive thoughts of helplessness and hopelessness, a child or adolescent is conceivably at greater risk for suicide.

Warning signs of suicide in adults may include alcohol or substance abuse, recent job loss, or divorce.

Warning signs of suicide in older adults may include the recent death of a partner or diagnosis of a life-limiting illness.

A warning sign does not mean automatically that a person is going to attempt suicide, but it should be responded to in a serious & thoughtful manner. Depression usually can be successfully treated with medication, professional counseling, or a combination of the two.

Positive support from family, friends, partners, faith community members and professional helpers can help people to deal with such challenges so that they do not feel overwhelmed by what has happened or what is going on. This support also breaks the isolation that many people feel in such circumstances.
Warning sign of suicide

Emotional signs of stress

Stress can be defined as a real or interpreted threat to an organism in a biological or a psychological sense. It results in physiological or behavioral responses When faced with a threat, whether to body physical safety or emotional equilibrium, the body's defenses kick into high gear in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight-or-flight” response.

The specific signs and symptoms of stress vary widely from person to person. Some people primarily experience physical symptoms, such as low back pain, stomach problems, and skin outbreaks. In others, the stress pattern centers on emotional symptoms, such as crying or hypersensitivity.

Emotional signs of stress
• Fear
• Depression or general unhappiness
• Anxiety and agitation
• Hopelessness
• Helplessness
• Moodiness, irritability, or anger
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Impatience
• Nervousness
• Guilt
• Loneliness and isolation
• Other mental or emotional health problems

While awareness about the impact stress can have on emotional and physical health seems to be present, many Americans continue to report symptoms of stress: Americans report irritability or anger (42 percent); fatigue (37 percent); lack of interest, motivation or energy (35 percent); headaches (32 percent); and upset stomachs (24 percent) due to stress. A smaller percentage report having a change in appetite (17 percent) and sex drive (11 percent).
Emotional signs of stress

The Symptoms of Depression

The Symptoms of Depression
The core signs and symptoms such as know mood, pessimism, self-criticism, and retardation or agitation seem to have been universally accepted. Other signs and symptoms that have been regarded as intrinsic to the depressive syndrome include autonomic symptoms, constipation, difficulty in concentration, slow thinking, and anxiety.

In 1953, expert listed 29 medical manifestations of autonomic disturbance, among which then most common in manic depression were hot flashes, tachycardia, dyspnea, weakness, head pains, coldness and numbness of the extremities, frontal headaches and dizziness.

There was reported a high frequency of medical symptoms, generally attributed to autonomic imbalance, among manic depressives.

Normally there were four different forms of complaints from patients:

• An unpleasant emotional state
• A changed attitude towards life
• Somatic symptoms of a specifically depressive nature
• Somatic symptoms not typical of depression
  

Although depression is generally considered an affective disorder, it should be emphasized that a subjective change in mood is not reported by all depressed patients. As in many other disorders, the absence of a significant clinical feature does not rule out the diagnosis of that disorder.
The Symptoms of Depression