Bp Magazine columnist, Melody Moezzi, discusses the distinction between clinical depression and typical sadness.
Hello, this is Melody Moezzi with bp Magazine’s bphope video blog, and today I’m sort of doing a part two from last time. Last time I talked about the distinction between mania and joy. Today I am talking about the distinction between depression and depression.
You’ll note I used the same word for both of these, because we often say “I’m feeling depressed” when we mean “I’m feeling sad and not clinically depressed.” Whereas with mania we don’t often say “I’m feeling manic” when you just want to say “I’m feeling happy” or “I’m feeling joyful.” So that makes the distinction a little more difficult, because we use the same word when we’re talking about clinical depression and typical depression. But that doesn’t have to make it so we don’t understand the difference. We can figure it out. It’s very much based in the same distinction when we’re talking about mania and joy, and that is your ability to function. Right, so is your mood state interfering with your ability to function within society?
In the case of depression, a lot of cases it’s more identified not so much as sadness—sadness is there in a lot of cases, but there’s also an intense apathy and sort of heaviness, a feeling that like everything you’re doing is walking through water. Right, like it’s just everything’s a little harder to do. And for me and for a lot of other folks, depression involves a lot of isolation, a lot of just not answering phone calls, not replying to emails, those kinds of things. And it also can involve a lot of physical symptoms. For me, migraines; for other folks, migraines as well, but also other aches and pains and things like that. And then there are cognitive symptoms as well in terms of depression affecting memory. And also sleep, and you know, there are a lot of different symptoms. But again, the key in terms of the distinction of when you’re just feeling just sad and when you’re feeling [clinically] depressed is your ability to function within society.
And it’s worth noting that crying does not mean you’re clinically depressed. Crying is a natural adaptive human response to the world we live in—to loss, to rejection, to grief. You know, it’s a natural kind of thing and it’s actually a great sedative; it has no [harmful] side effects, and it can calm you down. So there’s nothing wrong with crying. It doesn’t necessarily indicate that you’re going to become [clinically] depressed. Personally, for me and for a lot of other people, when I’m severely clinically depressed, I cannot cry actually. So, that’s worth noting. I think I’m out of time, so until next time, take care, and between now and then, leave comments in the section below, and we’ll have a conversation, and it’ll be lots of fun. So take care. Bye!
CREDITS: All A/V (videography, audio, etc.) courtesy of Matthew Lenard.
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Melody Moezzi
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