Help explaining depression to family and friends

[Sunshineonsea]

Does anybody have any good links for articles/videos etc to help give a better understanding of depression?
I hear a lot of 'why are you feeling sad , cheer up' so any info would be very helpful
TIA

Can I jump on here I think I could do with this sort of advice too

Hop on the train coffee it's really difficult to explain isn't it? And I suppose unless you have experienced it then it can be difficult to understand without a good explanation

This is a great one: www.goodtherapy.org/blog/inside-head-depressed-person-0110134

That's brilliant, thanks minion for posting. Best wishes op and everyone, I'm mid first major depressive episode in ten years and I'd forgotten what it was like :-(

hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html
Ok, this is a cartoon. Bear with me. It might not be what you are looking for but just have a read.

I don't know the link but... I have manic depression and look up the Stephen fry documentary on it on YouTube. Perfect.

Get a copy of I Had A Black Dog.

hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
Part 2

Telling a depressed person to cheer up and not be so sad is like telling someone with asthma to try a bit harder to breathe. I'm sorry you have to go through that.

Depression is very, very hard to understand from the other side too though. Your natural instinct is to try and make the person you love "happy" and when you can't it's a horrible feeling of failure and rejection.

One of the things that helped me to understand my stbXHs depression was looking online at scans of "normal" brains versus "depressed" brains to see that the electrical activity in both was extremely different.

Sorry you are all going through this...it's a terrible illness but there is sunshine on the other side.

An imbalance in this bag of chemicals which is our body.

If someone has a broken leg, you would be sympathetic abd not say 'don't be silly, of course you can dance if you put your mind to it'.

Like being in a black hole/tunnel and not always even being able to see daylight, let alone any way out.

Wanting the world just to bugger off wholesale and leave you the hell alone

You know how they say if you have a cold, if there was a fifty pound note on the end of the bed, you could reach it, but if you have flue, you don't care enough to even try? Depression is like that versus the 'we all feel a bit down sometimes'.

It's not a case of mind over matter. That's being a bit 'blue' or sad. Depression needs no 'reason'. You can't 'snap out of it', or choose to feel happy. Who chooses to feel suicidal?

Its hard to understand unless you've had the Black Dog gnawing on your ankle.

Thank you everyone for the links and explanations they are very much appreciated