Reply #26: Clinical depression isn't caused by sad events

[skygazer]

Makes me wish they'd come up with another name for it because calling it depression makes it sound like if you could just find something to be happy about, you'd be all better.

Catastrophic events will trigger depression in people who already have a proclivity to it but many people manage to survive disaster or heartache without ever suffering from depression. Some people have bouts of temporary depression, such as post-partum depression but that's a different sort of thing than true clinical depression.

She may suffer from depression - I don't know. But it wouldn't be because of outside events - they would only exacerbate what she already had.