I am sorry but I must disagree with you featherlou. Depression can go far deeper than low energy. In fact, energy has very little to do with it. Exercise, friends, family are all rendered meaningless. It will render you an empty vessel with no chance of being filled with anything but darkness.
Quasimodal, I don’t know how far along in the dark you are but get some help. At the very least, start talking to someone about it, preferably someone outside your immediate circle. That should allow you to speak more freely without being concerned with hurting the feelings of a friend while you dump.
Well, it looks to me like Quasimodal has already taken a big step. He’s told us!
And we can confirm that, Quasimodal, it’s Not Just You Being Weird.
I’m not a shrink, but afaict there are two kinds of depression:
“endogenous”, where your body’s chemistry isn’t right. This is the kind where you need to take pills; sometimes you can drop the pills after a while but sometimes not, and never without speaking with the doctor about it (the moment when they’ve decide to cut pills prematurely is considered the most dangerous moment in a depressed person’s illness). A priest, friend of my family, has had it for over 30 years. The pills don’t turn him into a chirping bird (that would be as wrong as his state without them), they just help him realize that life isn’t aaaaaaaall black.
“exogenous”, where something has happened that anybody can see is a perfectly logical reason to feel down.
Being down occasionally is fine; we’ve been told that we all have to feel like an ad for fabric softener the whole time but IT’S NOT TRUE.
And of course, before someone gets diagnosed as “depressed” there are sort of intermediate levels. I often feel shitty at certain moments of the month… but once I realize it’s “that day” I can deal with it, no pills needed.