Is depression really a form of mental illness? When I look at life and the world we live in...as I've said before, in a relatively short time we all be food for the insects, put into a crematory, etc. To deal with this horrific fact--if one really grasps it, it is rather horrific going from beingness to food for the insects--man has, since the beginning of time, come up with stories involving an eternal God, a heaven, angels, and an eternal spirit within each person, etc. in order to cope with a most horrific, depressing thought. There is certainly the possibility that our "essence" transcends death--who knows?!-- but imo a mature person considers the possibility of the insect thing and nothing after that.

A look at the world: dishonesty galore, not much at all real true compassion for others (how many people would take in a homeless person?), priority on money and not the individual, animals for food and/or their beautiful fur being treated horrifically, war almost everywhere you look, heads actually being whittled off (I encourage everyone to watch these videos so that you won't live in lala land, very different seeing these murders than reading about them)...I could go on.

So, imo a healthy minded individual would be depressed.
Huge numbers of those running around taking Prozac, Paxil, etc. are imo just taking "denial" pills...hence they run around smiling big, telling others to have a wonderful day when too many kids' bellies are grossly swollen from hunger and...heads are being cut off or people being burned alive. Which is really the form of mental illness?

Annie