Definition Of Depression

[FayetheAspie]

I have a question about what counts as a depressive episode. If someone gets sad and cries 2 or 3 times a day for a few days or so in a row is it still depression if they are still able to find things to enjoy at times during those days? Don't you have to like be inconsolable and stay in bed all the time for it to be an actual depressive episode?

 

[Judge]

Difficult to answer in any generalized manner, given there are different- even more intricate forms of depression. Similar to autism, it's not a condition that can be so easily defined in any "cookie-cutter" fashion. Perhaps this can better answer such a question:

Types of Depression

I was formally diagnosed with chronic major depression back in 1982. Though I suspect this is something I have lived with since I was 15 years old.

For me it always ebbs and flows...and most of the time I'm quite aware of either. When it flows I may keep busy, but I seldom get any enjoyment of out things I otherwise love to do. Causing me on occasion to live literally in no more than 24 hour increments, not looking beyond my own horizon in my own best interest.

It can also be triggered by circumstances or people around me who may not realize how they can inadvertently bring me down into a depressed state with too much negativity in too short a time period.

Perhaps the most practical thing I try to do over things I truly have control over is to avoid making big personal decisions when my depression flows. Though in the real world it's easier said than done, especially if you have a job requiring big decisions daily. For better and for worse I tend to mask my depression apart from my autism when possible.

All I can say from my own perspective is that an "episode" may not necessarily reflect a serious- or permanent condition depending on a number of things to consider apart from its duration, and whether it repeats itself whether cyclical or not.

 

[Boogs]

Difficult to answer in any generalized manner, given there are different- even more intricate forms of depression.

Seconded. It's a spectrum (of course!) and it's at least partly about how much it effects normal daily function as to how it's diagnosed. On top of which as @Judge says, there are different types that can't be directly compared.

Some people can live with low level depression all their lives, but still be able to function on a day to day basis.
You can have an depressive episode for a short period, but it may well be founded on life situation rather than any mental or organic condition, and you wouldn't be likely to be diagnosed as depressed unless it persisted and/or kept returning, and, had a significant negative impact on daily function.

In other words, a diagnosis should come as part of requiring some sort of intervention. If there's no need for intervention (including talk therapy) then no need for a diagnosis.

Caveat - that's not medical rules or procedure to my knowledge but what I gleaned from my own experiences and my fathers knowledge as a psychiatrist. Pinch of salt as always!

 

[Jonn]

I have a question about what counts as a depressive episode. If someone gets sad and cries 2 or 3 times a day for a few days or so in a row is it still depression if they are still able to find things to enjoy at times during those days? Don't you have to like be inconsolable and stay in bed all the time for it to be an actual depressive episode?

I have heard it expressed that way.

Using personal experiences, being an expert in due to my 10 years of suicidal tendencies in my 20's:

At the time I describe depression as being in a deep, dark pit that I couldn't escape from.
It was a feeling that was omnipresent, in the background, if not front of mind.

Suicide was a way out of the misery and constantly considered.
I had various plans and attempted suicide a number of times.
I bough a motorcycle hoping it would help me along.

Spoiler

Spoiler:
I didn't do it.

Since those days, I have never been depressed, despite the continued gang-stalking.
Mountains of sadness, but no desire to leave this mortal coil prematurely.