I think that people who are not clinically depressed can sometimes feel that life isn't worth living or that they wouldn't mind dying. I have heard elderly people who have recently lost their spouses or people who have outlived all their friends and whose health isn't good say that kind of thing.

There was an article recently on the main page of Psych Central talking about how the mental health profession often wants to call these people clinically depressed and medicate them when maybe some human warmth and care would be more appropriate.

To address your last question, I go through long periods where I feel like I wouldn't mind if I didn't wake up the next day. That's when I'm on medication. I suppose I could just keep taking the same meds and try to accept that it's okay to feel that way, but it's not a pleasant feeling. Whatever is "is" - depression or existential angst or a spiritual crisis - I'm not sure it matters what you call it, aside from the fact that what you name it probably decides how you go about fixing it.

Anyway, I don't like feeling that way so hence the visits to the p-doc and the therapist, the poetry reading, the walking, the sleeping.

When I'm in a "blah" kind of depression, it's hard for me to remember what my real self feels like, too. It seems to be only when my depression is lifting or when it's first starting that I have access to my real self and I can say "Oh, now I remember what my "real" personality feels like."

JoT...in the grip of brain fog