How do I know if I'm sad or depressed?

Depression goes on for a long period of time. You may want to stay in bed, shut off from the world, stop contact with people. Stay in your pj's all day long. Feel your worthless and life is not worth living. When your sad you normally do not go to the extreme of depression. You might mope around and feel pretty terrible about a situation but you do not normally focus on taking fault with yourself.

Your best bet would be to take the 7 cups emotional wellness test. It can help you pinpoint if you are depressed.

Depression is a long-term and recurring disorder that affects how a person functions in everyday life. Depression is a deeper feeling than sadness. Often times, depression doesn't even have a reason for being there. The person is just deeply sad and there's not even a reason why. Depression isn't always just deep sadness, however; it can often be characterized as the feeling of complete emptiness/devoid of any feeling at all. It drags you down and it rarely goes away. It saps your energy, takes away the joy in things that used to make you happy and makes everything in life dull and pointless.

Depression lasts for a long period of time and has this certain....pit wrenching (for a lack of terms) feeling with it. Sadness vanishes.

Look into the symptoms of depression, and speak to someone about it. We all feel down sometimes, but if you do have the symptoms of depression, then you should get some help.

If you suspect you might be depressed it is always good to consult with a professional. He/she will be able to give you the best diagnose and advice. It's also best to refrain from making your own diagnoses based on information on the internet. Only an expert with adequate knowledge and experience can be a reliable source of information on your mental condition.

Usually depression lasts longer than a few days versus when we are sad we are feeling sad for the moment and never really exceeds a longer period of time. Some times they are things that have happened in the past that we still continue to dwell on because we feel like we can't let go. It's different for everyone but if things normally bring you down and you feel like staying inside more often than not there could be something going on.

If you are depressed, your sadness is not in proportion to the actual event that happened. You might even be very sad without any obvious reason at all. A persistent sad mood that won't go away may actually be depression. This often causes difficulty sleeping and changes in appetite. It may cause you to feel like being alone and push family and friends away.

Depression is an illness as apposed to a mood. Depression can affect your sleeping, appetite and motivation to do things. Sadness is a normal emotion that we can experience from time to time due to an event or disappointment. Depression is when a normal human emotion, sadness, goes to a point where it is out of control and having a severe negative impact on a persons life.

Many people use the terms depressed and sad interchangeably. "oh I am really depressed today." But depression is a severe form of emotion that is more complex than sadness. It also encompasses a general lethargy and lack of energy and ambition. It is like being paralyzed where it seems too difficult to get out of bed. So if you hear someone say "I am depressed" and they are going through their day like normal, maybe they mean they are sad. You may not even see the person who is depressed because they can't even start their day. When they say they are depressed, they really need someone to reach out to them.