Misunderstanding Depression

Depression, like all illnesses of the mind, is completely misunderstood by most people...including many who are depressed. Depression has nothing to do with how your life is going because it is a chemical imbalance in your brain. I have had some of my most difficult times with depression when everything was going well.

Some ads for medications make it seem like just take a pill and you're cured. Worse still are celebrities in public service ads saying it can be beaten. Nothing could be further from the truth. Depression, in almost all cases, is a lifetime disease that requires medication(s) and therapy of one kind or another. Rarely, someone "beats" it because of an altering of their brain chemicals that ends their depression.

Don't even get me started on bipolar disorder a.k.a. manic depression!

What really gets me, is people who say "I'm depressed" when they're just really sad. There is a huge difference, HUGE. I am on medication for the fourth time in my life, and it is helping, but I still am dealing with it. It's nice to see I am not alone in my irritation with people that just don't get it.

this is what i don't understand about the general public. they would use the term loosely. due respect to those who are undergoing depression..learn the term before you use it.

depression may show manifestations of being sad..but sadness and depression are far different from each other.

depression is a mental state or condition. although hormones and chemicals can influence emotions, depression is not an emotion. it's a condition.

this word started to become a household term when people discovered the it. there are different kinds of depression. you are more than welcome to review them and select your choice. magazines, short stories, tv series, afternoon soaps and even commercials made "depression" as a subtle statement of being misunderstood, A-list kind of condition.

we may dwell on the feeling of being sad, but let's not claim that it's depression. if you think you have depression, go seek a professional. you need pills for this, not the sympathy of your friends and acquaintances for your bad breakup or bad experiences.

again...it is a mental state/condition...not an emotion. we should know better.

It is highly misunderstood. And those who haven't experienced it will never know what it truly feels like. I hate it when someone tells me to 'snap out of it'. Yeah, like I really want to spend my time feeling this way. I don't understand the thought process of some people. Anything can cause depression. And it may seem small to one person and ten times that amount to another. And you definitely can be depressed if your life seemed okay.

That is so true, a lot of people thinks that you can only be depresses when you have problems, little did they know that depression is brought by changes in hormones, chemical imbalance and a lot about the biology of our body. I knew that because I do feel depressed sometimes, and when I do I just gulp a lot of pineapple juice because I heard that the chemical responsible for moods is present in pineapple. I am a very lucky person, with beautiful kids, a very loving husband and a supportive family and yet i still feel depressed sometimes.

Mental illness as a whole is still highly stigmatized and misunderstood. While strides have been made and perspectives regarding mental illness are slowly evolving. Depression is often mistaken for laziness or a lack of motivation when it is the illness at work and not the person's volition.
Some of us know what causes our depressions and others have no idea but just have to deal with the symptoms. What you say is very true.