I actually have a different reaction. My husband has never been depressed, and it has taken about 12 years for him to get a full idea of what it's like for me. He gets really frustrated because he doesn't have a frame of reference for dealing with this. I'm glad he has never had to deal with this. I don't want anyone to have to go through this. At the same time, I wish there were better resources to help people who haven't experienced it to understand what it's really like for those of us who do.

My brother is another person who had never experienced depression. I never spoke about my experiences of it with him, because he could only relate it to what he's been through (being sad, upset, unmotivated). He can access his willpower to overcome these feelings in his daily life, and so he would say that it was simply a choice to employ willpower to overcome. Recently, he's been on medications for an infection. One of the meds gave him a bout of depression. I think he may understand more, now, but it was seriously hard to see someone like him go through this.

All that, and I do get very frustrated that I have to be one of the ones that does battle it...