Major depressive disorder

Edward Munch: "Melancholy" (1894)

Symptoms of Major Depression:

• Difficulty getting up in the morning and difficulty falling asleep at night (therefore, a tendency toward circadian rhythm inversion),
• Decreased physical energy and a marked reduction in the need for physical activity,
• Tendency to turn to food and/or alcohol and/or smoking, used as a form of self-medication,
• Decreased sexual desire but increased paraphilic behaviors,
• Seemingly unmotivated anxiety peaks that occur repeatedly throughout the day,
• Decreased perception of goals and objectives (strategic collapse),
• Perception of irreparable existential failure (of not having performed up to one's potential in romantic, parental, and/or work life),
• Operational slowdown,
• Ease of crying,
• Tendency to avoid social interaction or to use it unilaterally and non-reciprocally,
• Increase in episodes of uncontrolled anger, including self-harm,
• Onset of the aforementioned symptoms (or most of them), especially at the beginning of spring or, more recently, rarely, at the beginning of summer or autumn (and, in any case, with a seasonal frequency that is essentially fixed for each individual).