The problem with depression

From Tablet: "The problem with depression — the thing that makes it so hard to describe, and gives its sufferers a bad conscience — is its resemblance to unhappiness. Unhappiness is part of every life, and most people learn how to cope with it. But depression is actually the opposite of unhappiness, because it is precisely not '"a part of life.' When you are unhappy, life is pressing you, hurting you, and you are forced to respond to it. An unhappy life is a problem, and to be absorbed in a problem is to be absorbed in existence. When you are depressed, on the other hand, there is no problem, because there is nothing to be solved. Existence itself seems to retreat, to leave you stranded, without purchase on things, people, yourself."