Depression

 

Main Causes of Depression

• Abuse. Past physical, sexual, or emotional abuse can cause depression later in life.

• Certain medications. Some drugs, such as Accutane (used to treat acne), the antiviral drug interferon-alpha, and corticosteroids, can increase your risk of depression.
• Conflict. Depression in someone who has the biological vulnerability to develop depression may result from personal conflicts or disputes with family members or friends.
• Death or a loss. Sadness or grief from the death or loss of a loved one, though natural, may increase the risk of depression.
• Genetics. A family history of depression may increase the risk. It's thought that depression is a complex trait that may be inherited across generations, although the genetics of psychiatric disorders are not as simple or straightforward as in purely genetic diseases such as Huntington's chorea or cystic fibrosis.
• Major events. Even good events such as starting a new job, graduating, or getting married can lead to depression. So can moving, losing a job or income, getting divorced, or retiring.
• Other personal problems. Problems such as social isolation due to other mental illnesses or being cast out of a family or social group can lead to depression.
• Serious illnesses. Sometimes depression co-exists with a major illness or is a reaction to the illness.
• Substance abuse. Nearly 30% of people with substance abuse problems also have major or clinical depression.

• Family history – Depression can run in families and some people will be at an increased genetic risk. However, this doesn't mean that a person will automatically experience depression if a parent or close relative has had the illness. Life circumstances and other personal factors are still likely to have an important influence.
• Personality – Some people may be more at risk of depression because of their personality, particularly if they have a tendency to worry a lot, have low self-esteem, are perfectionists, are sensitive to personal criticism, or are self-critical and negative.  

 Symptoms of Depression

• Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. A bleak outlook—nothing will ever get better and there’s nothing you can do to improve your situation.
• Loss of interest in daily activities. No interest in former hobbies, pastimes, social activities, or sex. You’ve lost your ability to feel joy and pleasure.
• Appetite or weight changes. Significant weight loss or weight gain—a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month.
• Sleep changes. Either insomnia, especially waking in the early hours of the morning, or oversleeping (also known as hypersomnia).
• Anger or irritability. Feeling agitated, restless, or even violent. Your tolerance level is low, your temper short, and everything and everyone gets on your nerves.
• Loss of energy. Feeling fatigued, sluggish, and physically drained. Your whole body may feel heavy, and even small tasks are exhausting or take longer to complete.
• Self-loathing. Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt. You harshly criticize yourself for perceived faults and mistakes.
• Reckless behavior. You engage in escapist behavior such as substance abuse, compulsive gambling, reckless driving, or dangerous sports.
• Concentration problems. Trouble focusing, making decisions, or remembering things.
• Unexplained aches and pains. An increase in physical complaints such as headaches, back pain, aching muscles, and stomach pain.

Gilda Cordero-Fernando

Gilda cordero fernando is a writerand publisher from the philippines she was born on june 4 1932 in manila has a B.A. from St. Theresa's College-Manila, and an M.A. from the Ateneo de Manila University. Cordero-Fernando has two collections of short stories: The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker (1962) and A Wilderness of Sweets (1973). These books have been compiled and reissued as the Story Collection (1994).
Another book, Philippine Food and Life, was published in 1992 with Alfredo Roces. Cordero-Fernando also worked on Filipino Heritage, a 10-volume study on Philippine history and culture published by Lahing Pilipino in 1978. Afterwards, she founded GCF Books which published a dozen titles that deal with various aspects of Philippine culture and society.
Cordero-Fernando is also a visual artist, fashion designer, playwright, art curator and producer. In February 2000, she produced Luna: An Aswang Romance
 Gilda Cordero-Fernando is a multiawarded writer, publisher and cultural icon from the Philippines. She was born in Manila, has a B.A. from St. Theresa’s College-Manila, and an M.A. from the Ateneo de Manila University.

She started off as a writer and was awarded the Palanca Award for Literature several times. She has also written and illustrated children’s books.Her short stories are collected in The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker (1962) and A Wilderness of Sweets (1973).

She has had a very rich life as a publisher. In 1978 she launched GCF Books, which published landmark books on Philippine cultural history: Streets of Manila (1977), Turn of the Century (1978), Philippine Ancestral Houses (1980), Being Filipino (1981), The History of the Burgis (1987), Folk Architecture (1989), & The Soul Book (1991).

Cordero-Fernando has also worn numerous other hats as a visual artist, fashion designer, playwright, art curator and producer. In February 2000, she produced Luna: An Aswang Romance. In 2001 she produced Pinoy Pop Culture, the book and the show, for Bench.

In 1994, she received a Cultural Center of the Philippines (Gawad CCP) for her lifetime achievements in literature and publishing.

 
joy is a woman who is recounting his experince of world war II during which she wan an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as a wilderness of sweets into its opposite where romatic dreams and joys die and perish in the infancy even though the young joy dynamic charaterization occurs in the setting of the wolrd war II the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her peson but by its effect on her loved ones which most permanently took form in the death of her brother leoand the patriotism that the war engendered in badel the young boy with whom she was inlove. The young joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on her age. but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one to rob her of her childish romantic dreams.

Joy is a woman who is recounting her experience of World War II, during which she was an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as 'a wilderness of sweets' into its opposite, where romantic dreams and joys 'die/ And perish in their infancy.' Even though the young Joy's dynamic characterization occurs in the setting of World War II, the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her person, but by its effects on her loved ones, which most prominently took form in the death of her brother Leo and the patriotism that the war engendered in Badel, the young boy with whom she was in love. The young Joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on girls her age, but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one are enough to rob her of her romantic, childish dreams.
Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism.
The young Joy's exposure to the lurid reality of war causes the disintegration of her sentimental view of life, which starts when the Japanese soldiers arrest her father for interrogation about her brother Paby. Her recognition of a whipping coil hanging out of the back pocket of one of the soldiers leads her to instinctually realize the gravity of her family's involvement in the guerilla movement. Badel's absence from a scheduled tryst also increases her disenchantment with life and she comes to the conclusion that she is 'unwadted and unlavd.' The world she has previously looked at with sentimentality has 'already turned into ashes' and when Badel came back she already knew that her 'life had ceased being a wilderness of sweets.'
This recognition is only firmly bolstered when the destructive side of war fatally affected Joy's family when, ironically, the war was just about to come to an end. Leo's death confirms the young Joy's belief that life is indeed no longer 'a wilderness of sweets,' but is a 'wilderness of slaughter.' As the Americans usher in victory, the young Joy loses her childish idealism, and the piece of chewing gum she picks up from the street serves as an offering to the death not just of her brother, but of her youthful idealism as well. The chewing gum is a symbol of the waning sweetness of life and of young Joy's transition from a sweet, sentimental girl to a hardened young adult whose romantic, sentimental dreams 'perish[ed] in their infancy.'
- See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf

Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism. - See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf

Joy is a woman who is recounting her experience of World War II, during which she was an idealistic young girl whose experience of war changed her favorable vision of the world as 'a wilderness of sweets' into its opposite, where romantic dreams and joys 'die/ And perish in their infancy.' Even though the young Joy's dynamic characterization occurs in the setting of World War II, the deterioration of her romantic perspective is caused not by the direct effects of the war on her person, but by its effects on her loved ones, which most prominently took form in the death of her brother Leo and the patriotism that the war engendered in Badel, the young boy with whom she was in love. The young Joy does not get raped nor does she suffer from the cruelties war usually inflicts on girls her age, but the death of a family member and disappointment with a loved one are enough to rob her of her romantic, childish dreams.
Joy 'was twelve when the war broke out and sixteen when it ended.' The young Joy is an adolescent who is in the process of forming her dreams. She enjoys her childhood despite the war by tending a store with her friends and siblings, playing hide-and-seek, biking, and attending the neighborhood 'Everybody's Parties.' She laments her boyish looks with its lack of curves, reads 'weepy' love stories and fancies Badel to be her lover. Although love-struck, she is not blind to her flaws and is in fact acutely aware of her simplicity: 'I wept for all the grand impossible things Badel wished me to be, which I couldn't, couldn't... [He] could fashion nothing out of the clod of me, my thoughts were cinders, my soul was shallow, it had no brook'. Yet despite this awareness she is still completely infatuated with Badel, to whom all her romantic ideals were directed. She believes that they 'will get married. / ... live together / In a little candy house / Beside a lemonade lagoon'-a fantasy that displays the height of her idealism.
The young Joy's exposure to the lurid reality of war causes the disintegration of her sentimental view of life, which starts when the Japanese soldiers arrest her father for interrogation about her brother Paby. Her recognition of a whipping coil hanging out of the back pocket of one of the soldiers leads her to instinctually realize the gravity of her family's involvement in the guerilla movement. Badel's absence from a scheduled tryst also increases her disenchantment with life and she comes to the conclusion that she is 'unwadted and unlavd.' The world she has previously looked at with sentimentality has 'already turned into ashes' and when Badel came back she already knew that her 'life had ceased being a wilderness of sweets.'
This recognition is only firmly bolstered when the destructive side of war fatally affected Joy's family when, ironically, the war was just about to come to an end. Leo's death confirms the young Joy's belief that life is indeed no longer 'a wilderness of sweets,' but is a 'wilderness of slaughter.' As the Americans usher in victory, the young Joy loses her childish idealism, and the piece of chewing gum she picks up from the street serves as an offering to the death not just of her brother, but of her youthful idealism as well. The chewing gum is a symbol of the waning sweetness of life and of young Joy's transition from a sweet, sentimental girl to a hardened young adult whose romantic, sentimental dreams 'perish[ed] in their infancy.'
- See more at: http://www.litreact.com/reactions/a%20wilderness%20of%20sweets_cordero-fernando_pickles.html#sthash.xDbOSycN.dpuf