Psychotic Depression Symptoms

Psychotic depression is a state wherein a person suffers from a major depression with psychotic features. By definition, a psychotic is the one who loses the sense of reality and gets surrounded by hallucinations. They tend to see things which do not exist, they tend to hear voices out of nowhere! Most of the time, people suffering from psychotic depression are aware that what they see or do, is not real, as the hallucinations last for only a certain amount of time. To save themselves from the humiliation and sarcasm, they tend to hide their emotions, which makes psychotic depression symptoms really difficult to diagnose, therefore making the disorder highly chronic. What are the symptoms? Let's find out.

Symptoms of Psychotic Depression

A person suffering from psychotic depression tends to act in a different way than usual. This mostly includes paranoid delusions. The patient will rarely have a stable mood and will constantly think that the people around are there only to harm him/her. They don't care about their appearance or even their hygiene. But then one must make sure that their behavior has changed lately and hasn't always been like that. To make the diagnosing the psychotic depression symptoms easier, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which also happens to be the most referred to manual for mental disorders, has listed 12 symptoms for Psychotic Major Depression. They are:

1. depressed mood most of the day nearly every day
2. noticeably increased or decreased sex drive
3. loss of interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day nearly every day
4. significant weight loss or weight gain, OR decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day
5. insomnia OR hypersomnia (sleeping excessively) nearly everyday
6. psychomotor agitation(moving more quickly) OR retardation(moving more slowly) nearly every day, so much that other people notice
7. fatigue OR loss of energy nearly every day
8. feelings of worthlessness OR excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day (not merely self-reproach or guilt about being sick)
9. diminished ability to think or concentrate, OR indecisiveness, nearly every day
10. recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent ideas about suicide without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or specific plan for committing suicide
11. delusions or hallucinations
12. increased and intense daydreaming

In order to be sure if a person is suffering from psychotic depression, he/she needs to have symptom number 1 or 3 and 10, along with three to four other symptoms included in the list above. And if a person has a total of 6 symptoms or more, then the person is diagnosed with psychotic depression. Another thing to keep in mind is that these symptoms must be different from how the person has behaved in the past. Meaning, if he/she has always been inactive and lazy or has bad memory since childhood, then don't make your judgment based on that. The point is to notice the sudden change in the behavior in reference to the above mentioned symptoms.

One of the psychotic depression causes, is the presence of high cortisol levels in the body and brain during the extreme moods that makes the person prone to psychotic depression. Below is a list of some commonly found psychotic depression symptoms.

Psychosis: When a person tends to lose the sense of reality in his/her life, when the personality of a person gets deranged and the ability to think in a sane way diminishes, then we can say that the person is suffering from a psychotic disorder. This is one of the main symptoms which can help one say that a person is suffering from psychotic depression.

Anxiety: Some anxieties are normal and justified. However, if a person tends to get worried, apprehensive and nervous without any justified reason, then that is something to worry about! Having fear of things or people, thinking that someone is going to harm you, all these anxiety symptoms show that a person's mental condition is not normal at all.

Physical Immobility: Physical immobility is yet another symptom to add to the list. If a person tends to freeze in short intervals, is unable to move physically without any help, then you need to consider this as an alarm.

Constipation: Constipation and difficulty to pass stools, infrequent bowel movements is another symptom indicating the mental health of a person.

Insomnia: A psychotic depressed person also has full potentials of becoming an insomniac. Lack of sleep during the night, sleeping all time during the day, or may be not sleeping at all, can be a very loud and alarming symptom!

Agitation: If a person is constantly involved in the state of agitation and restlessness. Always tends to move or shake something vigorously showing extreme emotional disturbance, then this shows that the person might be suffering from psychotic depression.

Intellectual Impairment: The ability of a person to reason out and understand decreases. The person is dependent on others when it comes to properly communicate or to establish their independence.

Hypochondria: When a person tends to become hypochondriac, he/she thinks that normal functions and phenomena in and around are signs of serious trouble or illness. For example, sweating, heartbeat, itching will seem a sign of serious illness to the person, when actually there won't be anything as such!

If most of the above mentioned symptoms are found in a person, then the person is diagnosed with psychotic depression. Psychotic depression treatment can't be done at home and the patient is admitted in the hospital under constant supervision of doctors and specialists. Antidepressants and antipsychotic medications are used to stabilize a person's mental state and mood. Psychotic depression recovery can take up to a year, may be more if the case is way too severe. But even after that, the patient must be followed regularly to make sure that the mental condition is stable and recovering. If psychotic depression symptoms re-occur and go unnoticed, then the situation can get quite critical as the risk of suicidal tendencies also increase. Therefore, proper and regular treatment and medications are definitely required. Also counseling, encouragement and motivation proves to be of help.