What is the difference between depression and sadness?

[Timsup2nothin]

There's the age old question: Are you depressed because your life sucks? Or does your life suck is because you're depressed? And, further, is there a feedback loop making both true?

Consider that it doesn't matter if your life actually sucks or not...depression thrives on the belief that it does.

I kept a journal for a long time...one thing I learned from it:

On a day I was really down, and convinced I was in a long streak of sucking times, and really didn't want to make the effort to write...I convinced myself I would just write a quick line, like 'this sucks', but I would at least be able to say I did it.

I opened the notebook I was using and was astonished to see that the last entry, which I had to check to be convinced was indeed the from day before, started with "What a great <adjective> day today was!!!" and it wasn't sarcasm. My whole 'life sucks and has forever' involved completely forgetting about all sorts of inconsequential but good stuff that had happened just the day before. The day before that had kinda sucked, and I had been remembering that with total clarity...but the good day in between...nada.

Lesson...depression can twist my memory to feed itself if I let it.

 

[Cutlass]

There may be something to this, though depression for me has always lurked for me in the background, even in the best of times. I can remember when everything was as perfect as they could get for me (first couple of months of college) and I had trouble sleeping because of some nagging feeling that I couldn't explain then and can't quite explain now.

There's a feedback loop. At least I'm confident it exists in my case. The depression has consequences which has damaged my life. But the damaged life makes the depression all the worse, because now there's real things in the world that truly suck to be depressed about.

 

[Cutlass]

Consider that it doesn't matter if your life actually sucks or not...depression thrives on the belief that it does.

I kept a journal for a long time...one thing I learned from it:

On a day I was really down, and convinced I was in a long streak of sucking times, and really didn't want to make the effort to write...I convinced myself I would just write a quick line, like 'this sucks', but I would at least be able to say I did it.

I opened the notebook I was using and was astonished to see that the last entry, which I had to check to be convinced was indeed the from day before, started with "What a great <adjective> day today was!!!" and it wasn't sarcasm. My whole 'life sucks and has forever' involved completely forgetting about all sorts of inconsequential but good stuff that had happened just the day before. The day before that had kinda sucked, and I had been remembering that with total clarity...but the good day in between...nada.

Lesson...depression can twist my memory to feed itself if I let it.

That's an interesting point. And I'm sure it is one that applies to a lot of people much of the time.

 

[timtofly]

There's a feedback loop. At least I'm confident it exists in my case. The depression has consequences which has damaged my life. But the damaged life makes the depression all the worse, because now there's real things in the world that truly suck to be depressed about.

In my case depression did not loose me my job, but the job was a major factor in my depression and my job was lost to me before severe depression set in. I actually kept working for a year after my deep depression before I forced their hand and they let me go. It was actually the posting here on CFC that kept me sane and upbeat through it all. It seemed to me that medication just helped me exist. But it would be hard to say how things would have turned out if I had not been on medication, and I have no way to go back and do it over. I never blamed myself one bit for the circumstances, so I realize that those who are chronically depressed cannot either. In doing so, they also may not see any way to get out of depression by their own means. I also realize that sometimes circumstances will never get better for people, and a change in circumstances may be the only way they can finally get past the effects of their depression.