Most people do not understand depression. Yet we've all felt it. We want to think of depression as something that happens to somebody else. The truth is, depression is not going to go away, no matter how much we ignore it, scorn it, or neglect it.

Clinical depression is a serious, often fatal illness that is so common it's hard to recognize. Researchers estimate that almost 20 percent of the population meet the criteria for some form of depression at any given time--and that does not mean people who are temporarily "feeling the blues" and will be better next week, but people who having real difficulty functioning in life. If you believe depression isn't a "real" sickness, then you may want to consider this: Mental illness is second only to cancer in terms of economic impact, and the number of deaths from suicide each year is approximately the same as the number of deaths from AIDS.

If you have it, most likely you have trouble getting through your daily routine, you can't connect to other people, you have distressing physical symptoms, you can't concentrate, you feel guilty, worthless and hopeless, and you think about suicide. You may medicate yourself with drugs and alcohol, or practice dangerous behavior. Children, teens, adults, and seniors, men and women; depression is not choosy. If it sometimes seems that depression is the private affliction of the modern Western middle classes it is because it's in this community that we are suddenly getting new sophistication to recognize depression, to name it, to treat it, and to accept it - and not because we have any special rights to the complaint itself.

In psychiatry their are battles going on between opposing camps, those who want to treat the brain and those who want to treat the mind. Further supporting the disease idea is the finding that the brain chemistry of depressed people is different from that of other people; and it is possible to find the same biochemical differences in the brains of animals who appear "depressed". On a human level, helping people who are depressed understand that they aren't well can free them from much of the guilt and self-blame that accompanies depression.

This is just a start. Depression is a fascinating condition and I will try to discuss all of these elements in separate posts.

In depression, the meaningless of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaningless of life itself, becomes self-evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.
-Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon

As some of you know, I've been trying to write this blog (or at least talked about it) for some time now. I thought it would be cathartic. But my experience conforms to that of others who have written in this field. Writing on depression is painful, sad, lonely and stressful. Nonetheless, the idea that I'd be doing something that might be useful to others is uplifting. My increased knowledge has been useful to me.

Writing here will not be easy. I hope it will be clear that this blog will serve as a tool of communication rather than the therapeutic release of self-expression. I will write about my own depression, I will also write about the similar depression of others, then about the different depression of others; and about depression in completely other contexts. I welcome the contribution of others, in whatever form.

I hope the knowledge here will help to eliminate some pain for some people.