My musings on Facebook yesterday. I'm still trying to process things through, and sometimes it is easier to throw something out and get others ideas to correct or refine your ideas. See what others thoughts and reactions are.
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I think the entire world is having this discussion today. At coffee break today we were discussing the difference between depression and "being unhappy". It is very, very, very difficult for people not suffering from mental illness to understand depression. How can someone who seemingly has everything possibly feel hopeless and hurting inside? Most of us wake up in the morning and have the choice whether we want to be miserable or exuberant. Others have that choice made for them.
I often categorize my late 20s and early 30s as being depressed as I had little hope for the future, I was miserable, I hated my life as it was. But I don't think I was clinically depressed. I was simply unhappy with my situation. There was a rational explanation for feeling that way. When I finally took steps to address that rational explanation, I was no longer miserable.
I don't think I'm going to word this correctly, but bear with me. I'm still trying to wrap my own head around this. Let's say a football running back gets tackled so hard that his spine is crushed and he is paralyzed from the waist down. He would want nothing more than to be able to get out of his wheelchair and run like the wind. Yet so many able bodied people choose to sit in a chair all day and do not avail themselves of their good fortune. I think if I was that football player, that would upset me. "I want to move, but can't - but that guy can, but won't!" I think it would be the same for someone suffering a mental illness. I think knowing that they are not fully in control of how they feel, that they would want the rest of us to choose to be the happy, optimistic guy. Especially since they know the pain of being miserable. "Why live here in my world when you have the choice to be happy?". That probably makes no sense at all.
One thing I have noticed having dealt with friends and family that have dealt with clinical depression: UNHAPPY PEOPLE TEND TO WANT TO BRING OTHERS DOWN. Misery loves company. I find if someone is unhappy, they will tell you all about why they are unhappy. On the other hand depressed people want to hide their situation and will try their best to fit in. They will hide their pain and sometimes are completely unaware of their mental illness. They just believe that this is the way life is, so they don't get the help they need.
Those of us who get to choose which side of the bed we wake up on should appreciate that we have that choice and take advantage of it. I think back to the movie "Happy" where a man was living in squalor on the edge of a dump, living off the garbage others threw away and yet he was very happy. For most of us, happiness has very little to do with how much you have, and everything to do with your perspective on life and what you do with your life. I think it is a disservice to yourself and to those around you to CHOOSE to be miserable, but particularly wronged are those that don't have the choice and wish more than anything in the world that they could choose to be happy.
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Edit: What spurred this musing was someone had posted this image on Facebook yesterday, which I thought appropriate on most days of the year, but not yesterday.... As I said above, for some people, they don't have the choice.
Last edited by Devils'Advocate; 08-13-2014 at 07:20 AM.
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So agree with the comment that depressed people do everything to hide it and in fact a big part of when I have bad days is why I want to stay inside and not be around people, I don't want them to see me like that. The WHO made a great video about depression that helps others understand what we go through:
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Have both of you been feeling better since you've been successful with some weight loss?
DA, you say that unhappy people intentionally want to bring others down. I'm not sure how true that is, but I do know that when I try and be empathetic towards someone who is feeling anxious or depressed, those feelings leave their fingerprints on me... I absorb some of it and yes it can bring me down. I don't know how people who are counsellors who have to hear so many horrible or sad stories of trauma can do it without getting absolutely broken by it!
I purposefully left that out of the OP, but yes, I feel 10,000x better emotionally than when I was obese. Although the weight itself was only a minor contributing factor. The overeating temporarily numbed the pain of being unhappy, but ultimately made me even more obese, thus even more unhappy and requiring even more food. There was just a feedback mechanism that didn't stop for almost two decades.
Maybe it is unfair to say that unhappy people PURPOSEFULLY bring others down. But those that are rationally unhappy due to financial situations, breakup of a relationship, worry over relatives making poor life choices.... they are more likely to SHARE their story with someone else than someone who is suffering the mental illness of depression.
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Weight loss helps for sure, but for me its the routine of going out, exercising and how you feel after exercise that makes the most difference.
I plan on trying to go off my meds next summer, by then I should be in terrific shape and have built a really strong routine in my life, but even with all the weight loss and exercise I still feel it, have had some bad weeks this summer but those were where I had been partying the weekend before and skipped some workouts.
But compared to before the biggest loser I'd say I'm about 60% better overall, I still struggle with feeling happy, but the low points are less and less which is great.
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
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I have a VERY good friend of mine who is attempting to treat her depression SOLELY with exercise. She has tried seeking professional help in the past, but every doctor that she saw wanted to prescribe medications and each time she found the cure worse than the disease. The side effects of the medications were intolerable. She still has bad days... some VERY bad which worries the hell out of me.... but she tells me that she is much better off now than before starting the exercise regiment.
Of course her biggest worry in the world is getting an injury that would prevent her from exercising. Being injured would impact not only her physical, but also mental health.
I have a VERY good friend of mine who is attempting to treat her depression SOLELY with exercise. She has tried seeking professional help in the past, but every doctor that she saw wanted to prescribe medications and each time she found the cure worse than the disease. The side effects of the medications were intolerable. She still has bad days... some VERY bad which worries the hell out of me.... but she tells me that she is much better off now than before starting the exercise regiment.
Of course her biggest worry in the world is getting an injury that would prevent her from exercising. Being injured would impact not only her physical, but also mental health.
Speaking from experience in some (perhaps a lot?) of people exercise is often a more effective treatment than pills and in some case even therapy. The good thing about medicine is that it is easy to take, while depression and/or anxiety in a lot of cases would hinder your motivation to exercise or desire to go to therapy (at least in my case).
I'm no expert, or anything. But for the most part unhappy people know that there is hope, and that's why they're willing to discuss their unhappiness.
With depressed people, they don't think its every going to change, they have a deep sense of inevitability, and that they are to blame for it, and nobody is ever going to help them.
On top of that and for lack of better words, a unhappy person will collect reasons why they're unhappy. A depressed person will stack reasons why their depressed until that Stack dominates their lives.
I think of it as a well and your stuck on the bottom and the well keeps getting deeper, and there's no one to help you out of it, and you don't want to bother people by yelling.
That's probably depression.
with unhappiness, you can reach the lip of the well and crawl out and there are people standing there asking you what they can do to help you crawl out.
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This Ted Talk by Andrew Solomon is very good. He describes very well what is going on inside a depressed persons mind. He says depression is living without vitality.
I have battled depression for 30 years. With the help of a wonderful pyscologist and with the right combination of drugs, for the first time in my life my depression is under control. It's a disease, just like any other, where treatment is available. For me it was so hard to admit I need help and to become vunerable enough to actually do the psychological work. I had a close family member commit sucide after a lifetime of depression. I was going down that path as he was. It saddens me so much that my relative, Robin Williams and others did not have the opportunity to experience the correct treatment and to feel what it is really like to have vitality in life.
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The brain is a very interesting organ, especially it's role in the creation and interpretation of emotion.
If you live a life where you face a trauma when you are young and still developing (brain injury, abuse, witnessing a shocking event, etc), then you can spend your entire life knowing only the immature response mechanism that was used instinctively to cope with that trauma. It becomes your only tool, until you can alleviate the depression, and consciously... slowly... learn and develop new ways to observe and react to the world both outside and inside of yourself.
A depressed person is at a disadvantage because their body chemistry is working against them, and their parasympathetic and neurological systems are using routines, that while harmful, are the only ones they know. Those are like muscles, the more they are used and reinforced, the stronger they become. This is why multiple forms of treatment and therapy are required at all times.
As for the exercise anecdotes - of course exercise is a great thing because it causes a lot of specific hormones to be produced in the body that help regulate all kinds of systems the body uses. There is no question that it is an effective tool in regulating physical, mental and emotional health. Here is a good article that was written by a psychologist who goes to my wife's gym. My wife experiences anxiety herself and has made it part of her mission to make her facility a place where people can share struggles with mental and emotional health, and perhaps be connected with resources that can assist them, because mental health is such a vital part of our well being. Yet the unfortunate thing is that it is not as mainstream to consciously work on and discuss your mental health the same way it is to work an elliptical machine for 60 minutes... but that is what is required. Maintaining mental health is as much a committed and daily practice as is maintaining your physical health, we would do well as a society to become more conscious of mental health as it relates to our selves, our relationships and our organizations so when someone is working on their mental health, it is viewed as normal and good as it is seeing someone run by on a jog, instead of carrying a stigma like they need to be placed in a padded room and given shock therapy. Honestly, look at the consequences of our broad inability to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, conflict... these are tools that we need to be consciously aware of and developing at as early of an age as possible - just my opinion.
Also speaking from experience, people who experience anxiety and use exercise as their only means of treatment are only one step ahead of where they were than if they did not exercise. What is required for any healthy individual, to create resilience against anxiety and depression is multiple forms of coping. For instance, my friend deals with anxiety, and is on medication to help, but he's never really been able to find a medication that works really well. The ones that do work, sadly make him feel dead to the world, and that's not the solution he wants. Exercise was the one medicine that made him feel right, and he got good at it. So good at it that he ended up making it to the CrossFit Games in 2010. He got injured during that experience, hurt his lower back quite badly, and has not been able to exercise to the degree that made it an effective treatment for him. So for over 4 years he has been struggling to a massive degree in his personal life, trying to be in control of his anxiety, really frustrated and seeing it as his friend is absolutely heart breaking.
So yeah, I agree with you Pete.. exercise is a great tool, but it is only one. Medicine is an effective tool, but can give a boat load of unwanted side effects.. and again, it is only one tool. Therapy is a good tool sometimes, but it needs to be working on the level that meets the capability of the person, and that's hard to achieve because sometimes you need to go "back" to what feels like very childish levels of capability to begin building the habits and routines necessary for healthy and sustainable responses to emotional triggers. It is difficult, illogical and intangible work.. work that requires a great deal of self understanding and mastery of communicative tools.
No wonder it can feel overwhelming to someone who is lost anywhere on the way down.
And guess what? We are all on this journey. Even someone who is "healthy"... they're constantly having to reinforce healthy coping mechanisms and develop new ones as their world changes. Anyone is at risk of stumbling at any time. All it takes is that one moment to meet the trigger that you don't have the coping mechanism for, and the spiral begins.
The good news is that we are capable of being extremely resilient, as individuals and within friendships, professional relationships, families, small communities, and even large communities.. IF it is a focus. I do what I can to make it one for myself and those in my tribe.
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I completely agree with most of what is said. The way I've always seen it is that unhappy people have a solution to their unhappiness, while those with depression do not. There are of course long term treatments, but there is no simple "fix." The chair analogy is very apt. Sometimes you look at those choosing to sit in the chair and think "Why the hell wouldn't you want to go for a walk?"
I'll share a bit of my own experience if that's ok. It doesn't apply to EVERY person with depression, but I know there are many like myself:
Often times at work or amongst friends, I'm shown appreciation for talking things through with someone and giving them advice to help them through whatever situation they find themselves in. I always take the time to talk, or to attempt to cheer them up, but in a way it's for a selfish reason. It pains me to see others experiencing pain, because I know of one that is deeply ingrained into my everyday life. If I could fix it with a conversation, I would, so any time I see the opportunity to help someone else cheer up I do my absolute best.
When people say they were shocked by Robin Williams' suicide because he was so kind, funny, and seemingly full of joy, I know they simply do not understand depression. You can be all of those things some days, other days you can fake them if you're good at it, but the stories show that he just had a very real passion for trying to cheer people up and help others. Depression can make you a compassionate person, so when you're able to use any part of your depression for good, it's hard not to. What most people don't understand is that depression is, essentially, a misfire in the brain. It's a fog that dips right down to your bones. It aches. It's thoughts that seemingly come out of nowhere, and nobody tries to focus on them, but entertain them for a moment and they can suck you in.
For many people, happiness is indeed a choice. It saddens me seeing others grow upset over silly things. If you lose your phone, get a crack in your windshield, have a friend who isn't texting you back, aren't happy with your pay at work, etc. then I implore you to fix it. Choose not to let the little things get to you. Choose to take the bad with a grain of salt. I have depression, and when I have the choice, I ALWAYS choose to be happy, no matter the situation, because I know it's only a matter of time before a bad day comes and that choice is taken away from me. So if you can, do what many cannot and choose to enjoy every part of your day, no matter what.
Of course I known unhappiness is part of the human experience and everyone must embrace it from time to time. Next time you're unhappy though, really ask yourself why, and ask yourself if it's something worth getting upset over.
For someone who is unhappy, I think it can be an easy fix to vent to someone else and just tell them what you're thinking. For myself, one of my greatest struggles is speaking specifically about some of the thoughts I have, because one of my greatest fears is the idea that someone else might start thinking about it too.
Not to harsh the mellow of anyone's morning of course. Life can still be pretty awesome, and if you have the choice between happy and unhappy, choose happy, because you're missing out on a truly sensational gift if you don't.
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I'm not a fan of the concept "depression" as it is. It pretty much just seems to mean "feeling really bad". As things are, a depression diagnosis can actually be counter-productive in getting help for your problems. At least I'm relatively sure that's what happened in my case.
Personally I suffer from anxiety issues, insomnia, attention deficit issues and mood disorders. I've also suffered from various amounts depression most of my life. For a long time I thought depression was my problem, and the rest was symptoms. I got treatment for depression, and I've since mostly left it behind me, but not one of those other problems are gone. It feels to me that I've "wasted" a lot of time focusing on just one symptom instead of the whole set of problems.
I can't help but feel that if depression wasn't such a catch-all explanation, I would now be much further in the process of finding better treatments for my issues. Don't get me wrong, the depression needed to be dealt with too.
Still, it seems to me that I was "sent home as cured" way too soon. After all, you don't stop treating a cancer patient just because he's not in pain right now.
Depression is one thing that just blows me away, and I've only learned more about it in the last few years. The only time I've observed it was postpartum depression, and it was just scary as hell. Watching a completely healthy, strong and confident individual fall into a dark hole, completely irrationally was an extremely difficult situation that just had me feeling helpless. You can see it tearing this person apart, and there's so little you can do, aside from talking, and they don't want to do that.
I'm embarrassed to say that I had an incredibly ignorant view of depression before I witnessed it first hand, and that's why I try to not get too upset when I see that ignorance in others. Education is incredibly important in this field, and getting angry at ignorance doesn't actually help anything. Although that image DA showed in the first post really does piss me off, because I have to assume Robin Williams' suicide is what spurred the posting of it.
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Yet the unfortunate thing is that it is not as mainstream to consciously work on and discuss your mental health the same way it is to work an elliptical machine for 60 minutes... but that is what is required. Maintaining mental health is as much a committed and daily practice as is maintaining your physical health, we would do well as a society to become more conscious of mental health as it relates to our selves, our relationships and our organizations so when someone is working on their mental health, it is viewed as normal and good as it is seeing someone run by on a jog, instead of carrying a stigma like they need to be placed in a padded room and given shock therapy. Honestly, look at the consequences of our broad inability to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, conflict... these are tools that we need to be consciously aware of and developing at as early of an age as possible - just my opinion.
I really like your whole post but quoting this part in particular.
I would never dare to talk about anxiety with employers, a date, most friends, colleagues etc. My dad who was suffered from anxiety most of his life strongly encouraged me to shut up and not speak up about my issues at work or risk being seen as "a problem".
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Originally Posted by JobHopper
The thing is, my posts, thoughts and insights may be my opinions but they're also quite factual.
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This site is probably the best one that I've EVER seen in my travels. It deals with depression by explaining it much better than I've ever heard, with humor and everything. I honestly think everyone should check this out.
Plus: it's really funny too.
In two parts (mostly). I find the explanation in the beginning of part 2 to explain depression best to people who aren't depressed and who might not quite understand the difference between depression and the blues.
I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.
I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was.
But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same.
I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled. I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.
Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.
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Depression offers you no choice. It is simply a constant cloud over your head and darkness around every corner. It's not a matter of attitude or logic or changing your thinking.
It is a completely irrational beast, the noonday demon. You can have all the money, prospects, friends, family in the world with the sun shining on your face and a great house and shiny new car and all you feel is desolation, isolation, and emptiness.
In this regard, it's not a hopelessness in the sense that it's tied to any achievements/events like "I'll be able to pay my bills! My kids are graduating! I'm starting a new job!", etc. It's a hopelessness that you'll never feel better despite all logical actions you can take in your own life. Simply nothing brings joy and nothing brings relief.
The illustration above is actually quite powerful because the loss of childhood imagination is something everybody can relate to and in many ways similar. That sort of loss is something you can't explain and no matter how hard you try, you can't get it back again. All the things that used to make you happy once, now only serve to reinforce misery and a nihilistic anomie.
I have no qualms admitting that I was troubled by this when I was much younger. Each person needs to find what works for them. All the medical professionals and medication did nothing for me and in fact, made things even worse in many respects. Ultimately I found solace in staying busy. Workaholism became the only "cure" because feelings of anxiety and responsibility drove out the deadness or at least stopped me feeling the desolation and misery for awhile.
Please watch Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. It's a great documentary about a brilliant mind and great comedian who also almost committed suicide in his darker moments.
There's also an interview out there with Hugh Laurie (House) regarding his own depression. I believe he described one realization happening when he was driving a race car around a track and realizing that instead of feeling exhilaration or fear or joy or any of the normal things; that he simply felt nothing but a deep sadness as he was doing it.
Last edited by Hack&Lube; 08-13-2014 at 01:33 PM.
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Depression offers you no choice. It is simply a constant cloud over your head and darkness around every corner. It's not a matter of attitude or logic or changing your thinking.
It is a completely irrational beast, the noonday demon. You can have all the money, prospects, friends, family in the world with the sun shining on your face and a great house and shiny new car and all you feel is desolation, isolation, and emptiness.
In this regard, it's not a hopelessness in the sense that it's tied to any achievements/events like "I'll be able to pay my bills! My kids are graduating! I'm starting a new job!", etc. It's a hopelessness that you'll never feel better despite all logical actions you can take in your own life. Simply nothing brings joy and nothing brings relief.
The illustration above is actually quite powerful because the loss of childhood imagination is something everybody can relate to and in many ways similar. That sort of loss is something you can't explain and no matter how hard you try, you can't get it back again. All the things that used to make you happy once, now only serve to reinforce misery and a nihilistic anomie.
I have no qualms admitting that I was troubled by this when I was much younger. Each person needs to find what works for them. All the medical professionals and medication did nothing for me and in fact, made things even worse in many respects. Ultimately I found solace in staying busy. Workaholism became the only "cure" because feelings of anxiety and responsibility drove out the deadness or at least stopped me feeling the desolation and misery for awhile.
Please watch Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. It's a great documentary about a brilliant mind and great comedian who also almost committed suicide in his darker moments.
There's also an interview out there with Hugh Laurie (House) regarding his own depression. I believe he described one realization happening when he was driving a race car around a track and realizing that instead of feeling exhilaration or fear or joy or any of the normal things; that he simply felt nothing but a deep sadness as he was doing it.
Thanks for this. You're description above is very accurate. Depression is something I have struggled with for as long as I can remember, even as a child, and something that I have no doubts I will have to deal with for the rest of my life.
It truly is all encompassing. It effects every single aspect of your life, and in the darkest moments, even the simplest of activities can trigger thoughts of self harm and suicide. That feeling of being an inconvenience to everyone around you, yet trying to put a smile on your face so that they're not bothered by or worried about you, while simultaneously doubting yourself in everything you do. A simple drive to the corner store for a jug of milk seems like a huge task that you need to force yourself to do out of necessity, but then in the car on the way there the thoughts of "If I just swerved and hit that pole fast enough...." or "If I "lost control" and hit that semi head on it would look like an accident so that my family wouldn't really know what happened...." pop up like these voices in your head trying to overpower your common sense of self preservation....
It's something that it truly almost impossible to understand unless you've actually dealt with it yourself. The idea that "you just need to change the way you think" is very simple to those that don't get it, but when trying to have a single positive thought about yourself seems like trying to convince yourself that a completely fabricated lie is true, changing your entire mindset is really an impossibility...
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I really like your whole post but quoting this part in particular.
I would never dare to talk about anxiety with employers, a date, most friends, colleagues etc. My dad who was suffered from anxiety most of his life strongly encouraged me to shut up and not speak up about my issues at work or risk being seen as "a problem".
This!
This is the big one. I've worked somewhere that they sent out emails saying "If you are experiencing mental health issues please feel free to talk to HR, we will understand and assist you" and sent out newsletters about how to deal with stress and signs and depression, etc. Watched a co-worker, who was previously high ranking and seemingly hid their anxiety quite well go in after they had an anxiety attack at work and then proceed to be passed over for any promotion, despite being easily the most deserving several times. They were labelled after that meeting and ended up quitting the company because they had an instant ceiling put on them.
I have moderate anxiety myself (both social and general anxiety since I was very young) and I will NEVER let an employer know. It's too easy for them to then use the excuse or stigma "Well you have anxiety, you can't handle the extra pressure of a management/increased responsibility job" and then keep me from getting to the job I have worked hard to get. Do I have bad anxiety? Sure do. Does my anxiety mean that I can't deal with stress and will have a mental breakdown as soon as you ask something of me? Far from it. Does anxiety mean I can't do the job as good as or better then someone else? No.
In a perfect world, I would love to see it at some point where you can openly tell your employers that you have anxiety or depression without stigma or fear of being labelled so that if you do happen to go into a bad period where a mental health day mid-week is the difference between you collecting yourself before the bottom falls out and you ending up in the hospital a week later because you had a massive anxiety attack from over doing it for weeks/months on end and ignoring or pushing back the signs until you explode because you fear that showing any sign of depression or anxiety will ruin the career you worked for. Quite frankly, I had been allowed that opportunity myself after pushing for 2 years straight, I might have avoided what has turned out to be one of the worst periods of my life recently because I just kept going and didn't stop at all or listen to the fact I needed a break because after 2 years of 16-20 hour days and doing extra jobs because the workplace had major job cuts and basically holding up a company figurehead who was going under, I hit a breaking point. And break I did. It wasn't pretty. I did end up losing my job over it as the employers felt I could no longer perform to the level they expected and that it was my best interest to find something "less stressful". But that's the past and I'm moving forward and lessons have been learned and all that.
I also understand there are some people who will read what I said above and say "Oh well, there's proof you can't do the job as good as someone else" and that's fine. Frankly, I'm a workaholic and I feel that people who take lunches longer then they are allotted or abuse bosses who are lenient on working hours are lesser employees. So I'm just as guilty of stereotyping too.
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For many people, happiness is indeed a choice. It saddens me seeing others grow upset over silly things. If you lose your phone, get a crack in your windshield, have a friend who isn't texting you back, aren't happy with your pay at work, etc. then I implore you to fix it. Choose not to let the little things get to you. Choose to take the bad with a grain of salt. I have depression, and when I have the choice, I ALWAYS choose to be happy, no matter the situation, because I know it's only a matter of time before a bad day comes and that choice is taken away from me. So if you can, do what many cannot and choose to enjoy every part of your day, no matter what.
And I to have the same sadness and jealousy towards people who get to have a choice. I actually had to stop posting on here for awhile and avoid the site because the amount of petty BS people got upset about starting bothering me. No I don't know the backgrounds of everyone and if someone takes offense to this, I do apologize as I'm not trying to cut anyone down, but you see some of that and you really wonder why someone who could be happy chooses just to get bent out of shape over it. The last few months have been one of the worst bad periods I've had anxiety wise and I spent every morning getting up saying to myself this will be a good and happy day and I will do what "normal" people do and be okay. Only to have that mood kicked in the ass by anxiety 30 mins later or when I did try to go out and push myself forward, I got kicked back pretty hard and then try not to let that be the thing that stops me from having a happy day. And then I came here and saw people getting all riled up about how someone parks their car, you know it made no sense. I can't leave the house due to anxiety, but someone was seemingly just as upset as I was about that over how a car was parked. How about I trade you being able to leave the house to go park your car somewhere and complain someone parked next to you and you can stay stuck in the house because the thought of leaving it overwhelms you? (Again, not trying to single anyone out and no, I don't know their background or maybe they suffer OCD or some mental illness and that is legitimately something that upsets them and makes them feel similar to what I was dealing with)
So yea, if you have the choice to be happy and a choice to chose between happy and sad, do so. Because many of us would saw off a body part and give it to you without thinking twice to have that ability.
...and now I've rambled on excessively and created what looks like a pity party. Not my intent, not looking for pity. I know now things will get better and all that and hope that anyone else feeling down and out can find the same sort of relief and know that things do come around, just never as fast as you want them to.
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Depression vs Unhappiness
