Depression is a symptom, like a fever. Or a disease category, like pneumonia. Our understanding of it is fairly primitive, just like the understanding of coughing and pneumonia back before we knew that coughing could be caused by bacteria, viruses, allergies, sinus infections, chemicals, etc. We use the word "depression" as if it were one condition but it has many different causes and related ways to be managed. My depression, or dysthymia, is situational. it is caused by the conflict between who I am and who the people I love want me to be. It's a long-term but low-grade condition. It lets me work but it blunts my creativity and robs me of pleasure and peace. I've never considered suicide, but I have caught glimpses of it from here.
