Depression vs sadness and the seriousness of them both

EVERYONE gets the blues from time to time — it’s a normal, healthy part of the spectrum of human emotion. However, feeling low becomes concerning, according to clinical psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell, when these feelings linger and consume you over an extensive period of time with debilitating consequences.

“Sadness is a temporary state of mind that you may go into in response to some kind of emotional upset. We usually get sad in response to an unfortunate life event such as when you lose a job, your marriage is broken up, or you failed to secure an important work account. Depression, on the other hand, is a mental illness or disorder that comes with extreme sadness. Some people describe it as being in a very dark and grey place. It is pervasive, it goes on for some time, and in general it affects your thought process and behaviour,” Dr Bell explained.

Dr Bell said that people often use the terms interchangeably, but the two are not even remotely close. She pointed out that while sadness is an integral part of depression, depression, unlike sadness, has an overpowering effect on the individual’s life, often wreaking havoc on just about every aspect from home to work.

She pointed out that while sadness falls within the realm of normal on the spectrum of human emotion, depression is categorised as abnormal. This is because the effects on the mental and emotional space are pervasive and chronic. When we are depressed, Dr Bell said that we become chronically sad about everything and our minds become chaotic and this triggers unhealthy thoughts and irrationality. With sadness, our emotions are tied to an individual event that is our source of sadness.

“Sadness also differs from depression in the sense that you are often reflective, you think about what you could have done directly, or you may even lull over memories. However, your state of mind when depressed is a toxic place. It affects the person’s concentration, thought process where they could become suicidal as well as homicidal, and feelings of hopelessness become fixed,” Dr Bell explained.

Another key difference between depression and sadness is that it makes you highly critical of yourself. In fact, it makes you very self-loathing which is why many people consider suicide. The person may begin self-deprecating, may harm him/herself, and the self-esteem also takes a huge blow. With sadness, Dr Bell said that once whatever was the trigger for the sadness fades, then the feeling of sadness also goes.

Another difference between sadness and depression is the effect on energy.

“When people become sad their level of energy is affected. So often, depending on the trigger for a person’s sadness, a person may take a little longer than other times to emerge from his/her state of sadness and its impact on energy may also vary. With depression, however, it usually saps everything and so this is what causes people to lose interest in things they would usually enjoy. It makes you want to isolate yourself, it causes you to lose your appetite for food, and in the case of adults, sex as well,” Dr Bell advised.

Dr Bell said that depression can suck so much life out of you that you do not want to leave your home or practise any type of self-care such as bathing, combing your hair or brushing your teeth.

She advises that it is important that if you notice signs of depression in yourself or in others you love or care about that you seek the help of a professional to reduce the debilitating effects that it may have on you or them. Dr Bell said that depression is one of the leading mental illnesses affecting Jamaicans, alongside anxiety disorder.