Depression is a commonly hidden and severe illness that negatively impacts your feelings, thinking, and actions. The activities of your life you enjoyed once are now making you sad and lonely, but it is treatable. Whether you embark on a journey with the support of one of the best high-end facilities in the form of a behavioral health treatment center or pursue another approach, depression can be overcome. Due to depression, several emotional and physical problems you suffer become exaggerated. This leads to a decline in your work ability at the office and at home.
The sad reality is that according to the National Alliance on Mental illness depression ratio in women is two to three times more than in men. Several factors are involved in causing and propagating depression in females and it has prolonged effects. These include hormonal imbalances and psychological and social issues, the stress of multitasking, family responsibilities, sexual discrimination, lack of social support, and other traumatic life experiences. However, here we will discuss how depression is affecting working women:
1. Women Lost Their Jobs Due to Depression
Depression is a leading cause of female employee turnover in the world at the moment. Since it contributes to many events of a nervous breakdown and causes acute episodes of panic attacks and anxiety thus, it plays a vital role in women’s financial dependency.
Depression affects women’s earnings, and its consequences are far more devastating in single mothers’ lives. Depressive episodes also cause inferiority complexes in women and lead to an overall decline in their work performance.
Consequently, they are given fewer chances of promotion to high-risk jobs with more responsibilities. This is a prime reason women lose their jobs more often than men in all sectors.
2. Depression Affects Time Management and Focus
One aspect of depression and its episodes that plays a crucial role in working women’s life is the lack of time management and focus on depressive patients. Women who experience acute episodes cannot pay attention to timelines and perform project scope.
Due to continuous missing timelines and health deterioration, females are forced to resign. Also, the probability of severe mania in these females makes organizations less likely to hire them first. If such episodes become apparent during the job, these employees are told to get professional help and return after successful remission.
Depression affects almost half of the female population in the world and currently ranks first in occupational hazards for women. Symptoms of depression include fatigue, mild or severe, lack of interest in doing fun activities, sex, and reproduction, and behaving roughly or agitating.
3. Depression Affects Female Entrepreneurs
According to the survey, it was observed that the female entrepreneur ratio is increasing yearly. But the depression ratio is also more present than ever. Many females suffer from low self-esteem and severe fatigue that affects their commercial decisions.
Many women have failed to prove themselves, as successful businesswomen, due to depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, and failure to develop relationships and marriages.
There are many breakthrough ideas for women entrepreneurs to overcome such psychological conditions. But on the other hand, the latest research found that the ratio of depression and anxiety is more in women when their business fails.
Depression leads to poor decision-making power, lack of managing finances, and competition affects businesswomen and thus fails in their commercial ventures. There are many developmental phases of such incidences of depressive conditions. Many females commit suicide due to such failures.
4. Body shaming, Slut shaming, and Patriarchy Induce Depression
Depression also makes women prone to body-shaming, slut-shaming in the workplace. These factors induce adverse solid psychological effects on females and develop low self-esteem. They are further reducing their work efficiency and professionalism.
Depression also plays a vital role in suppressing females in cultures where patriarchy exists. Melancholia leads females to always sacrifice their voices in workplaces and endure harassment and deprivation of rights.
Many psychologists suggest that females are more active and aware in their place of work. But the unhappiness and pessimism make their skills dormant and lead them to bear the cruelties and low-paying jobs.
5. Suicides in Working Women
There are many incidents where depression has severely hampered women’s lives in place of their work. According to the latest statistics from ILO (International Labour Organization), females commit suicide 2-3 times more than men in the same workload and environment. It is all due to depression and its consequences.
There are as many as 14 suicides in every 100,000 people worldwide. These are all work-related ones, and 11 of them are females. This data shows the destructive effects depressive feelings play on women. Along with suicides female population goes through significant gastrointestinal issues due to paranoia, insomnia, chronic fatigue, infertility, etc. These effects give rise to high divorce rates for such patients and poor marital life. Almost 80% of girls who face multiple breakups, divorces, and zero relationships suffer from such depressive conditions.
6. Factors Contributed to Cause Depression in Working Women
Various factors contribute to depression in working women. The depression symptoms are sadness, lack of motivation, anxiety, feeling of hopelessness, and lack of concentration. Depression leads to a lack of functioning at work or home. The causes of depression are either social, biological, or hormonal.
The causes of biological and hormonal depression are premenstrual syndrome, pregnancy, infertility, postpartum, menopause, perimenopause, thyroid issues, and specific medication side effects. However, several other factors contribute to depression, such as a
- family history of depression
- the death of a family person
- relationship issues
- money issues
- discrimination at work
- not achieving goals
- job loss
- retirement
Final Thought
Working women are facing the problem of depression due to various factors or reasons. However, proper treatment and medication can help them to overcome their mental illness.
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