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

Sadness is short lived around an hour to a day and has a clear reason to it. Depression sneaks up on you and doesn't always have one clear answer to its occurrence, it'll last a lot longer at a time, you won't cry as such but it'll feel heavy in you chest and head and your brain will just feel flat and under stimulated.

Feeling sad or feeling depressed are normal feelings that ALL humans go through! You are not alone. You might be sad because you have a chemical imbalance in your brain. Often I'm sad or I'm depressed when I'm not getting enough sleep, or exercise, or if I'm consuming too much caffeine, and working in a stressful environment. How do I know if I'm depressed? I talk to my partner, or someone on 7 Cups, let them know how I'm feeling, and in talking to them I can figure it out. I'd recommend seeing a therapist if you think you might be depressed for more than a few days/weeks.

If im sad or depressed i know because i shut my self away from my family and lock my bedroom door. It Sometimes comes along at times when i least expect it...

Feeling down, feeling worthless, feeling like nothing will get better, feeling like you're a burden to everyone including friends and family.

There are several kinds of depression but the common thing is that you feel sad, sick and empty. If you are watching tv, you would just keep staring at it. Even if you are smiling you aren't actually happy. You feel like lying down all the time and every small task would seem huge. You may even be sleep deprived. You also start avoiding social situations. It may take days, months or even years to come back to normal. If these apply to you then you are depressed and must talk to a councelor. immediately.

Sadness and Depression are two different things. Depression is a more serious mental illness where you get to the point that you can no longer eat, your body hurts physically, and you get sad and feel lonely on a series of episodes. Depression is more severe.

Being sad is usually only once, it can be sad over something, for a few minutes, hours, days. Being depressed is when you are upset a lot, even with no reason and you get tired of trying to make yourself happy. You lose hope a lot and can't be bothered doing fun activities you enjoyed in the past. There is a big difference between being sad and depressed

Depression has a lot more signs than just being sad, for example the inability to motivate yourself, not feeling joy in things you liked before. To really know if you're depressed, you need to talk to a therapist/psychologist.

I too have had the same problem. I would suggest going to therapy to talk about your feelings and they can also help distinguish if you have depression or not :)

Depressed is when the sadness happens frequently and if you're sad at a certain high level. Depression could also mean that the sadness is affecting your life. You can also try to understand if you have depression with the symptoms or talking about it to a professional counselor or therapist.