I agree that people often confuse normal ups and downs with psychiatric disability. I like to make the following analogy: If you've gone to a casino and bet a bit more than you had intended, that does not mean you understand what it's like to be a compulsive gambler. I've known a few compulsive gamblers. They are afficted with a genuine psychiatric disability. Their obsession with gambling becomes a major focus of their daily lives. They neglect financial responsibilities to channel a ridiculously large portion of their income into gaming. Their burning "need" to get to the casino or to the bookie is a compulsion that rules their lives. Most people, including those who love an occasional day at a casino, have no conception of what it's like to gamble compulsively. Anyone can imagine the joy of winning some money . . . of going home from the casino with more money than you went in with. That's not what compulsive gambling is all about. Compulsive gamblers are in a state of constant anxiety over finances because they are constantly having trouble affording the bare necessities if life due to plowing their money into betting.

Similarly, having the occasional hangover from excessive partying now and then does not let one know what it's like to have a true severe alcohol use disorder, formerly called alcoholism. The compulsive gambler and the alcoholic do not have control. To try and stop the behavior causes enormous psychological distress.

Likewise, everyone has been depressed from time to time. Lots of people have experience tragedy in their lives. Neither of those things is the same as "clinical depression." Being upset because you got fired from your job is not clinical depression, though it can lead to c. depression.

Chronically recurring depression is an enduring feature of a depressed person's psychology that profoundly undermines that person's coping capacity. I do wish more people understood that.

Having a psychiatric disability is not a choice. I believe that it is true the the sufferer has an obligation to attempt to manage their disorder as best they can. That is a matter of choice. Character does factor in, IMHO. I can't decide to not have a tendency to relapse into depression. I believe that is hard-wired into my nature. But every morning I have choices about whether to get out of bed, whether to take a shower. Every evening I have a choice about whether to plan the following day and make a schedule about how I'm going to use my time. I can't always conform to the resolutions I've made the previous evening. But I don't have to be totally helpless. I can choose to push back against some dysfunctional tendencies I have. Sometimes I'll fail. But, if I persist in pushing back, there will be successes.