Hitting that midlife milestone birthday often causes people to look at their lives from a new perspective. After examining your current state of physical and mental health, you might have recently realized that you have lost some of your joy. During midlife, you may find that things no longer seem so exciting anymore, or you might even feel apathetic. Now that you realize that something seems wrong, it's worth going deeper to find out if it could be depression. Look for these three signs in your life that signify that starting depression treatment could help you reclaim your former sense of vitality.

You Have Stopped Caring About Your Career

Depression sometimes starts off slowly, and this can make it hard to notice each of the symptoms as being part of the same condition. For instance, you might just think that you are waking up too late to get to work on time because you are tired. Alternatively, you might no longer care about whether or not you get that promotions, so you just don't do anything extra. These are potential signs that the symptoms of depression are affecting your life in notable ways. A professional therapist can help you determine if you are just dealing with burnout or if you have a more serious case of depression going on.

You Don't Enjoy Your Old Favorite Hobbies

During most of your life, you likely had activities that you enjoyed doing on a regular basis. While some these hobbies may change as you mature, you should still have something that you really love to do that makes you feel relaxed. Whether you gave up cycling or sewing, you need to examine your lack of interest in your former favorite activities more closely. This is a common symptom of depression that indicates that you may need to find out what is holding you back from happiness.

You Can't Get Past a Recent Life Change

In some cases, depression arises from a major life change that you aren't handling as well as you had hoped you would by now. Divorce, the loss of a loved one, and being fired from your job are a few common issues that you may have trouble moving forward after. If you find yourself ruminating on the past or running over all of the things you could have done differently in your head, then you should be concerned. Feelings of sadness or hopelessness and an inability to move on after a few weeks following a life change are other signs that depression is taking hold. Depression therapy can help you focus on learning how to cope with this change so that you can begin to feel happy within your new normal.

To learn more, contact a therapist about depression treatments.