[nopassrecover]

I think depression, as distinct from unhappiness, is something you dismiss as unhappiness (i.e. circumstance driven) until you experience it and realise it is an illness.

The clearest example I can imagine is, take someone who is down on their luck, unemployed, in debt, medical problems etc. and fly them to the best doctors in the world, then give them a great new job with a million dollar signing bonus - I think they'll typically be pretty happy. Do this to a depressed person and they'll probably try and kill themselves because they consider themselves unworthy.

[allwein]

The greatest thing my Grandma ever taught me was that it's okay to be sad when bad things happen. It used to be that I'd get sad for some reason, then I'd feel bad for feeling sad, and this would just set up a tight vicious cycle until I literally became depressed. Once I gave myself permission to feel sad and not feel bad about it, I was able to stop that from happening in the future.

[sunchild]

Seems to be akin to religious debates. The brain (and more importantly, the mind) is one of those areas where modern science has too little traction to speak in absolutes.

Anecdotally, I had a breakthrough with mood control when I eradicated "jumping to conclusions" from my idle thought patterns. That made a HUGE difference in my outlook on life.