Depression is a mental illness period. That's what it's considered. Physical effects are symptoms of depression. Headaches, back pain -- those can be symptoms of depression. It's considered a mental illness because of how debilitating it can be. Sure, you can name stress as a mechanism that causes it, it definitely can, it can cause a lot of things, but I want you to consider for a moment normal people's reactions to stress vs. the reactions of those with a mood disorder to stress. The latter do not recover so easily. That's what makes it a mental illness.

The steps you take to overcome the depression further reinforce that point, be it through medication, workshops (which seem to be based in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is what my therapist gives me), therapy, all of the above. Because you're suffering, and you're looking for alleviation for that suffering. That you even have to go out of your way to find coping strategies to deal with normal stressors, and change your thoughforms, makes it a mental illness.

No one here is saying they want to keep suffering. On the contrary, I think everyone here for the most part is looking for ways to cope and not be alone in their struggles, to look for identification with others and share their experiences so that they don't feel so alone, and in kind to offer help to others to assure them that there is a way out of the woods and to the other side, and that they'll be okay. It's a really scary thing when you get to a point where you start having ideation. That's a mental illness. It goes against the basic human drive to survive.

Positive thinking is a great thing. When I'm mildly or moderately depressed, I can do it. But once I cross that line -- and I don't have a choice in the matter, it just hits me like a freight train -- it's extremely hard to think positively when your entire world is black. It's comforting when others give you guidance and do it for you. You need your hand held a little bit. You feel desperately alone. You feel like you're being ripped apart from the inside. It's ****ing awful. It's sick.

My tactics for dealing with that are: 1. Go to pdoc, get new med or adjust current meds, depending on circumstance. 2. Go to work everyday, because I'm safer there than at home with my thoughts and I feel slightly better being productive (it's all still there, mind you, just buzzing in the background). 3. Watch as many episodes of Family Guy as I can.

Taking steps to prevent it from happening is great, and I can see that's what you're doing. I've done that too, in different ways. And it has gotten better. I do cope with things better now. But it does come back for me, and it's effing frustrating. People without mood disorders don't need to take steps to prevent it from happening, and that is the point. That's why it's an illness. It's not solely because of "wrong thinking." It's based in brain chemistry itself. At least, for a lot of us.