Not sure I totally agree. Let us say it was triggered by a totally situational thing which I think it was. To me in that case it is not healthy to stay mired in the depression which I do consider a disorder. To me the healthiest thing to do is to identify what the trigger was and to identify the thoughts and feelings surrounding that and not to avoid those feelings. One example is no one asked me how I was really doing (my siblings) this made me angry and underneath that sad. I didn't avoid those feelings I felt them and even talked about them. The other one was that I feel isolated from my sibs because they are financially stable and have kids and good lives ect.....comparing myself. I feel ashamed that I don't measure up. So I have to feel the shame and sadness and anger and work through it. Examine my thinking about it and change my thinking about it while not avoiding the feelings. CBT. That is my view on a small situational thing. I don't think of depression as sadness. For me it is not it is numbness...no feelings at all.

Now when it hits me totally out of the blue in my cycle for no situational reason at all that is a different story. I don't care about how it is labeled. I learned along time ago to accept it as it is and ride it out. Finding value and meaning in it and purpose is a new concept to me and one I have been working on.

I have told the story about how one time I called my AA sponsor and was complaining how depressed I was and I didn't know what to do and he listened and didn't say a word. When i was done he just said "So be depressed." A big light bulb went off. No one had ever given me permission to be depressed and I surely had never given myself permission to be depressed. From that point on I slowly learned to give myself permission to be depressed, to just accept it for what it is and live with it. There wasn't anything going to get me out of it so it was a very healthy way to deal with it for me. Honoring it, finding meaning in it, purpose in it....I am working on that.

As far as my normal mild to moderate I have learned to live with it for sure but I don't know that I have found it healthy or in what ways it may force me to act in healthy ways. I do think of it as a disorder because I do not think of it as an emotion. To me it is nothing like sadness or anger or shame. It is much more like a physical illness. That is how I experience it. The main symptoms of mild and moderate for me are lack of energy, lack of motivation, just tired. Nothing at all to do with emotion.

In a very severe depression the biggest symptoms are a total lack of energy and motivation, feeling totally numb, no emotion at all. Could easily sleep all day and often do. To me it is much more of a physical disorder than a mood or emotional disorder.