Hey SoSadMom.
You said, "I think about how I (and many of us here) have an intelligent mind, a roof over our heads, enough to eat today, social support if we do not provide those things for ourselves, and yet we still have mental health issues. I'm feeling like a whiner, that I don't have any good reasons to feel badly, and I should just suck it up. Does anyone feel like that?"

<- Yes, I do. I understand what you're saying. I feel self-indulgent, selfish, lazy, whiny, and fake sometimes. I have a home, I have someone who financially supports my slacker butt, I have more food than I can handle, and at the moment- and for most of my life- I'm pretty healthy. I'm a bit out of shape, but that's my fault. I also have IBS (annoying) and MVP with tachychardia (but that's no big deal). I've only been REALLY sick (like deathly, deathly ill) once and I'm currently fine as far as that is concerned. Also, while my father and his family have nothing to do with me, I do have a mother and maternal family who I am fairly close to. I also have a few close friends and some great pets. I have had wonderful opportunities, too. Also, we've never been rich, but we've never truly been poor. My mother was poor as a kid, but not since she's had me. Yet, I'm not happy and feel I never will be. I also feel very lonely, heart broken, etc. I hate myself and I feel empty inside. I do have some problems- many of them caused by myself, but a few were somewhat out of my control- but I tell myself they should not cause me to feel as badly as I do. Somedays I wonder if I could just choose to feel happy. Part of me says I'm keeping myself this way, but another part of me says, I might could possibly fake happy if I caught myself in the right mind frame, but I couldn't keep it up.

You said people in countires were things are more difficult are remarkably happy. Do you think they are really happy or they just don't label their feelings "depression" as easily as we might. Also, how stigmatized is it there? When my mother was younger, she said if you admitted to needing any kind of mental or emotional help, you were labelled crazy and it was seen as a disgrace. No one sought help. Maybe they have similar issues. Of course, maybe we are more depressed because we are jaded about the good things, but they might appreciate good things more than us because they don't get them so much. For instance, I love egg nog, but I bet if they had it around all the time- not just on Christmas- I wouldn't like it as much. Maybe they appreacite the rare gifts of life more because they see less of them. Also, as you said, maybe we have too much time on our hands. My sister always tells me if I stay busy I'll be less likely to be depressed, but I'm not so certain. Often when I'm busy, my mind is preoccupied with depressing thoughts, anyway. Maybe their minds are preocuppied with NEED and HAVE TO DOs to the point that they can't think about the "what if" I fail, etc.

I tried for awhile to be busy, and it was somewhat distracting, but in the long run, I'm still depressed, and sometimes I even thought about the depression or felt it while I was involved in these other activities. Also, I looked at the activities as distractions and time fillers to get me through the day, so I could go to sleep. That was my goal- just to fill the day up and pass it off so I could go to sleep and be unaware of it. Is that really happiness? Even if I managed to stay distracted and didn't get depressed, it seems an empty life to me.

If depression is somewhat genetic, that may also be to blame. Maybe the genes have taken a better hold over here.