Soldato
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Not true on paper... And in practice your comment is too vague to comment on (or hold any validity).
Depression : State of mind or Medical condition
- Thread starter paradisiac
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Man of Honour
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Care to elaborate?
Something I still can't understand is why people think depression is an emotion, and "depressed" is feeling sad or down.
Ever heard "I'm feeling a bit depressed today" from some one who just means they're feeling bummed out because they've had a bad day at work or something? Too many people don't actually know what it means and use it as a synonym of unhappy or sadness when it really isn't.
This is probably the main reason a lot of people don't take "depression" seriously because of the widespread misuse of it by clowns.
You seem to be getting mixed as well. Of course someone can feel depressed, it doesn't meaning they have depression.
I never said some one can't "feel depressed"...
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this is so true. I know I feel depressed 99% of the time recently, but I don't suffer from depression. Unlike the people that have talked about their depression, and even the birth of a child, or having your loved one there doesn't change your mood. but for me, I know that as soon as I meet someone, or become happy with the single life and the fact my ex has moved on, I will snap out of it. that is how I see the difference between being depressed and having depression anyways.
It seems you didn't really get what I was saying. Being happy or happiness isn't the opposite of depression, depression isn't "feeling sad". You're using the term interchangeably with sadness or being down. People can down or sad due to depression but it's not depression to be down or sad.
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Deleted member 61728
Tell me why is it that people in 3rd world countries like Africa or Indigenous tribes seem to be some of the most happy people in the world and when you move to a relative palace like the Uk or some other western country where you have food,health services, hot water,electricity etc people seem to get a lot more depressed? They are prescribed antidepressants that merely mask the symptoms and do not tackle the root of the depression which is in a lot of cases the way society treats individuals if they don't follow the flock they seem to get punished.Its the concept of striving to gain as much of this money as possible during your whole life and not thinking anything else other than how to pay for the next iphone etc.Is the purpose of your life purely to work and make others richer?
I totally get what your saying, however the example you gave was someone saying that they are wrong to say they are "feeling a bit depressed." Feeling depressed works for me, many things can make someone feel depressed but I agree with you in that it does not mean someone suffers from depression.
Indeed, I do agree with that distinction.
A normal person feels better once the situation which is making them miserable subsides, a depressed person will feel down regardless of circumstance.
Personally, I've never been depressed or even down for any time longer than a few days - on the flip side I'm never ecstatic about anything either.
The problem is that you're using it for a synonym for being down, which it's not, but because you think this you keep making examples as for why it's okay or "right" to say it.
The example I gave was to highlight the flippant and incorrect usage of it to refer to when some one is feeling down, sad or bummed out.
Feeling miserable isn't depression, people in this thread seem to only be able to relate it to states of being unhappy, this is the whole point of my post. "Depression equals being sad" seems to be the extent with which people can process what "depression" is supposed to mean, and this is what isn't right.
Depression can refer to a mood or a condition, I believe this is the cause for most of the confusion.
I'm well aware of the distinction as I've grown up with a close family member with cynical depression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(mood)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_depression
Think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. For me "feeling a bit depressed" (the words from your example) is about being down, sad, low in spirit or dejected. Look up what depressed means, I think your problem is that "depressed" has to be used exclusively with the medical condition. They are not the same thing.
If you mean in your example that someone is implying they have depression then I can go with that and totally agree with you. If you did mean that, then it wasn't overly clear to me, it maybe should have read "I have depression" instead of "I'm feeling a bit depressed"
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I think you are missing what me and most of the other posts were saying. I certainly wasn't saying feeling low was depression, I said it was feeling 'depressed'. I personally feel there is a distinct difference between depression and depressed. depression is a mental illness, depressed is a state of mind/feeling.
You're just trying to complicate the word to back up your argument.
A person who is actually feeling depressed will be suffering from depression.
The way you're using it doesn't make sense, because if by "feeling depressed" you mean "feeling down" why not just say that instead of saying depressed?
Yes, a Wiki article. You do know they're wrote by general people right? This is kinda the point I was making. From my experience most people think "depressed" is feeling sad, so it's completely unsurprising that it has an entry on Wikipedia.
Do note again that I'm not saying that people can't "feel depressed" but that people use it as a synonym of being sad or unhappy.
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How about this. For the number of people who suffer from mental health issues, the part of the NHS that deal with this has been chronically underfunded for decades. Mental health care is inadequate for many acute patients.
How about the Oxford English dictionary definition?.
1 [mass noun] severe, typically prolonged, feelings of despondency and dejection:
self-doubt creeps in and that swiftly turns to depression
2.Medicine a mental condition characterized by severe feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy, typically accompanied by a lack of energy and interest in life:
she suffered from clinical depression
It has two meanings.
On a side note, I think a mild depression can be quite healthy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
Studies by psychologists Alloy and Abramson (1979) and Dobson and Franche (1989) suggested that depressed people appear to have a more realistic perception of their importance, reputation, locus of control, and abilities than those who are not depressed.
People without depression may be more likely to have inflated self-images and look at the world through "rose-colored glasses", thanks to cognitive dissonance elimination and a variety of other defense mechanisms that allow them to ignore or otherwise look beyond the harsh realities of life.
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