By Allie Arnold
Staff Writer

The other day, my friend came to me to vent about the bad couple of days she had been having. With school issues, car troubles and boy drama she came to me with a tear stained face and a quivering lip. She spilled her troubles, told me nothing was going right for her, then proceeded to tell me she was depressed.

I have known this friend for a very long time, and with those many years of friendship has come a hard hitting realization that she tends to overreact. However, the last thing I wanted to do was belittle her feelings. Hearing her use the word “depressed” was unsettling, so I sat there and continued to listen, not really knowing the right thing to say.

Two days later, her problems all seemed to work themselves out. She was back to being her happy-go-lucky self with no memory of her “depression” she had just 48 hours earlier.

I asked her how she was feeling and she immediately flashed a huge smile and said, “I feel great, I’m totally not depressed anymore.”

Something about her response sounded strange. I had never heard anyone say, “I had depression, but I got over it really quickly.” There is a reason I had not ever heard that before; because it just does not work like that.

My friend was not depressed, she was sad. Anyone who has been diagnosed depression will describe the illness as a black hole that leaves you feeling helpless. You have no desire to do anything, eat anything or talk to anyone because all you can seem to do is sit there and either feel nothing but pain or feel nothing at all.

Sadness is not depression. Sadness is a bad day, or even a bad week. Being sad is inevitable because it simply comes with the territory of being a human being. I am not saying that if it is not depression, then the feelings experienced are not to be taken seriously. I am saying that there is a difference between an emotion and a disease, and it is very important, simply for respectful purposes, that the two are not confused.

According to MedicinePlus Medical Encyclopedia, severe depression is when feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for a long period of time. It consumes your every thought because it’s something that seems almost impossible to escape from.

Another friend of mine who once experienced depression told me how she would hear people in the halls, in her classrooms and even her own friends talk about the condition like it was nothing. They could not seem to understand why people with depression could not just “look on the bright side” or “get over it.” To her, it seemed like everyone thought depression was nothing.

Since she was someone who had experienced it first hand, she considered the condition to be far from nothing. At the time, it was her whole life. It was her own personal monster that would not release its grip of her every thought and every action, and for those people to speak of her monster like it was no big deal, it frustrated her because she wished more than anything that it was that simple.

It is hard to understand the way depression works if you have not experienced it for yourself. I myself have not experienced it so I have no idea what true helplessness feels like. However, being sensitive to it and not confusing it with a temporary problem is important out of respect to someone struggling.