With depression, I'll lose interest in things, feel slowed down, sleep a little bit more than usual, have a hard time focusing, and I don't want to socialize. I experience a crash, hopelessness, and feeling that the world is coming to an end. I isolate more and have a very hard time letting go of all the negative thoughts going through my head. These feelings will last days or weeks. Even if something good happens while in a depressive episode, I feel a dark cloud is following me everywhere and that I'll never see the light.

With regular sadness or a bad mood, it tends to be more of a natural reaction to something, and it's fleeting or only lasts for a couple of days tops. When sadness is not related to an episode, the sadness is easier to work through, in my experience. If the sadness persists for 2 weeks straight, that's usually a warning sign that it's time for me to talk to my pdoc.