My friends are raising identical twins. They dress their kids alike, fix their hair the same, and even gave them the same initials. I often wonder how they tell these two kids apart. I once asked my friends if they ever get the kids mixed up, and they didn’t hesitate before telling me, “No, never.” You see, even though these two kids appear the same, they have separate, individual personalities. Their mannerisms and interests make them unique. My friends joke that the kids are twins until they open their mouths, and then their true identities pour out.
Have you ever experienced things like that? Things that are so similar, they are hard to distinguish?
In my line of work, I encounter people on a regular basis who confuse two such things – sadness and depression. I meet people who are sad but wonder if it’s depression, and people who are depressed but just write it off as sadness. Confusing these two can keep people from getting the help they need, so let’s take a look at the differences between being sad and being depressed.
How to Tell if its Sadness or Depression
People often mistakenly believe that sadness and depression differ only in degree. They believe depression is just a deeper, more painful sadness – as if sadness measured on the low end of a hurt scale while depression is just a higher degree of hurt. However, this is not accurate. Rather than a matter of degree of seriousness of the feeling, the real differences are found in the duration of feelings, symptoms experienced, and the impact your feelings are having on you physically.
Sadness is a normal feeling experienced by everyone. It follows fairly normal patterns and is triggered by a hurtful or difficult situation or event. As the situation improves or as time passes, feelings of sadness also tend to subside.
Depression is not a normal or typical feeling. Rather, it is a mental illness which affects our emotions, thinking, and physical well-being. It does not follow rules and most often is not triggered by any particular event or experience. Depression has its own list of symptoms and sufferers must experience some variation of many those symptoms in order to be diagnosed.
Given the subtle and not so subtle differences between sadness and depression, we can ask these 5 questions to help decide which one we are experiencing.
- Are you still enjoying the things you used to?
We’ve all seen (maybe even experienced) someone eating a pint of ice cream or going on a shopping spree when they’re sad. (Not necessarily suggesting these coping mechanisms – just making an illustration). Though they’re hurt and sad, they can usually be coaxed into enjoying a night on the town or something they used to enjoy before the event that triggered sadness – even if it’s just a Netflix show or favorite hobby. Someone who is depressed struggles to find any joy in the activities they once found pleasurable. You may be experiencing depression if the fog of sadness won’t lift long enough for you to have any interested in or enjoy the activities you once loved. You may now find these things pointless.
- Can you pinpoint an event that made you feel this way?
Sadness is often related to a specific cause. Whether it be a death, sickness, the end of a relationship, or other major change, you can generally trace your sadness back to a specific trigger. Yes, you may occasionally feel sad for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, but chances are, there’s a reason (and a trained counselor can help you figure that part out). Here’s where it can get a little bit tricky because depressive episodes actually can sometimes be linked to specific events. But, those depressive tendencies are usually already present – perhaps laying dormant – and the linked event can cause the depressed individual to experience a misery that extends beyond normal parameters of time. Of course, it’s more characteristic of depression to just turn up for absolutely no apparent reason.
- Do your lows stay low?
Do you have bouts of lows or are they consistent? Sadness lows can usually soften with something to distract you or busy yourself with. They go through cycles and there’s room for alleviation. On the contrary, depression lows are fairly constant. While there may be a few high moments, the lows seems to be the norm. In severe cases they seem to happen every day and can feel unrelenting.
- Are you eating and sleeping fairly normally?
When we’re sad, we may emotionally eat or not feel like heading out to dinner. You may cry yourself to sleep after a breakup or hurt. But, in general, we are still able to maintain our workout routines, sleep schedules, and our desire to eat. However, someone who is depressed carries their attitude of “what’s the point” over into areas of eating, sleeping, and exercising. They often experience significant disruptions to a healthy eating schedule and their sleeping patterns may reach extremes of insomnia or even lying in bed all day sleeping – refusing to get up.
- Have you entertained thoughts of harming yourself or dying?
While you may feel bad or guilty about something, feeling sad doesn’t typically lend itself to feelings of shame or worthlessness. Those suffering from depression can be very self punishing with their belief they have no worth or value, or they may be full of blame. In extreme cases of depression, sufferers may experience suicidal or self-harming thoughts. If this is the case, please seek help immediately. Reach out to a family member, friend, pastor, counselor, or medical professional. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at any time at 1-800-273-8255 or visit the American Society for Suicide Prevention website (https://afsp.org/find-support/im-having-thoughts-of-suicide/). Depression already robs you of your joy. Do not let it rob you of your life also. There is always help available.
To be human is to feel. We experience, we embrace emotion, and we feel – sometimes very deeply. Yet, life can hurt and those emotions are not always pleasant or enjoyable. Knowing what we’re feeling (and what we’re not) – as well as what prompted those feelings – helps us to heal. Pinpointing causes of sadness helps us to eventually heal from it, and properly diagnosing depression allows us to seek out the right treatment method to get you back to being you. And, to get you back to a place of joy and peace. Don’t hesitate to begin that healing today.
-Joel D. Walton