When Depression Can't Be Cured. [View all]

[BlancheSplanchnik]

Just found this article:

"Depression doesn’t go away for everyone. For most people, depression is temporary and passes naturally or once the person has expressed the feelings and resolved the thoughts causing the depression. But there is a small percentage of people who can talk about their issues, express their feelings, take very good care of themselves emotionally, even take medication and have a great life, and still be depressed throughout their lives. They may have periods of feeling good, periods of feeling less bad, and periods of feeling horrible—for these people, the depression never goes away permanently.

Major depressive disorder is the medical term for repeated episodes of a very intense, deep depression that is disabling and enormously painful. People who are bipolar experience similar disabling depression during their depressive phases. Often, between episodes, people return to a functional, happy state. Sometimes people can also have a milder depression, even between episodes of major depression."


The paragraph below describes my brand of depression very well. I hadn't realized that there was a type of Major Depressive Disorder like this Atypical:

"There are also people with “atypical” depression who can be in a deep depressive episode and yet appear to come out of it long enough to laugh or enjoy something briefly before sinking back in, or can act normal for short periods. This can be confusing to both the depressed person and to other people. This isn’t an indication that the person is any less depressed or any less in danger than someone in a major depressive episode who doesn’t have those brief breaks. It’s just a different form. Atypical depression is also characterized by feeling emotionally paralyzed, physically leaden—barely able to move or engage in any activity, and often overeating, oversleeping, and experiencing sensitivity to rejection."

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/depression-cant-be-cured-0209124/