Do You Suffer From Both ADD And Depression? What You Can Do

When you suffer from clinical depression (major depressive disorder), the condition can be challenging to treat and manage on its own. However, when you also suffer from another mental health condition, such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), life can be all the more challenging. If you are not sure whether or not you suffer from ADD or ADHD as well as depression, an ADHD or ADD evaluation from a service like Clinical Services can help to determine if you suffer from either of these conditions along with your depression. After you are evaluated, if it turns out that you do suffer from ADD/ADHD and depression, there are treatment options that can help you manage the two conditions simultaneously. Get to know some of these treatment options.

Cognitive/Behavioral Therapy for Both Conditions

One of the best treatment options for both ADD/ADHD and major depressive disorder is cognitive/behavioral therapy. When these conditions occur together, many patients find that one condition exhibits more severe symptoms than the other and may affect their life more than the other. However, in order to determine which of these mental health conditions is more symptomatic and causes a person more trouble, a person needs assistance from a therapist.

Cognitive/behavioral therapy will help a person to talk through what they are experiencing and struggling with and analyze their own thoughts, feelings, and behavioral patterns to learn how to better deal with their mental health conditions. Through this work, a person can learn to better function on a daily basis and can also find which condition is more severe than the other, which in turn will help with other treatment options.

Psychiatric Medications

Both major depressive disorder and ADD/ADHD can benefit a great deal from psychiatric medications. However, because the medications for these disorders sometimes have conflicting effects in the body, treating them both simultaneously with medications may not be the best idea.

As such, the work in therapy to determine which condition has the most debilitating effect upon a person's life should be used to help determine which condition should be treated first with medication. When that condition is better under control and can be sufficiently managed without medications, the secondary condition can then also be treated with psychiatric drugs.

Inpatient Mental Health Treatment

When a person suffers from both ADHD/ADD and depression, they may experience more severe symptoms, including prevalent and frequent suicidal thoughts and tendencies. Because of this, it may be more beneficial to seek out inpatient mental health treatment in some cases.

Suicidal tendencies, attempts, and even just suicidal thoughts should not be taken lightly, but should be addressed immediately. In inpatient treatment, a person can get a great deal of monitoring, support, and full-time care to help a person to overcome these issues and continue in their treatment and recovery.

Now that you know some of the treatments that can help you when you are suffering from ADD/ADHD and depression, you can be sure that you are getting the care and assistance that you need to recover and get your mental health back under control.