Is depression a state of mind

Is a mood an excuse used to avoid personal
interactions? Or maybe it’s an attempt to illicit
sympathy? Or is it an actual disease?

Actually, it can be all of those things. Clinical
depression is a major depressive disorder affecting
about 7-18% of the population at some in their lives.

But for most people, when they say they’re depressed,
they’re referring to the depressed mood. This
depression rarely lasts long. It comes and goes and is
usually brought on by a number of different things.

Depression affects people in different ways. Some
people prefer to be alone. They cut themselves off
from friends and family in an attempt to work their
way through the mood in their own time.

Others throw themselves into social activities,
preferring to ignore it until it goes away. Still
others tend to dwell on it and try to draw the people
around them into a similar state of depression,
embracing the philosophy that "misery loves company".

There are also the people that seem to live in a state
of constant depression. For some of these people, the
diagnosis is functional depression and treatment would
be advised. But for others, it’s more of a continual
mood.

Some people just seem to enjoy being unhappy. Their
negative outlook of themselves, those around them and
life in general keep them in this continual
depression. On occasion it is an attempt to get
sympathy, but for some people, it’s just the way they
are.