What's the Difference Between Sadness and Depression?

In everyday conversations, sadness and depression are often used interchangeably, but it's crucial to recognize that they represent distinct emotional states. Although they share similarities, comprehending the difference between sadness and depression is essential for both individuals experiencing these emotions and those seeking to support them.

Sadness is a natural human emotion. Sadness is usually triggered by a difficult, challenging, or disappointing experience. It’s typically a reaction to life events. Some examples of life events that can lead to sadness include you lost your job, you lost a loved one in your life, or you’re going through a breakup. Typically, these feelings of sadness come and go. The sadness may lead you to isolate yourself or stay at home for a few days, but it will likely dissipate over time.  When you’ve gotten over the loss or disappointment, your sadness ends.

Depression is an abnormal emotional state. It’s a mental illness that affects our thinking, emotions, behaviors, and perceptions in chronic ways. When someone is depressed, that person will feel sad about everything. Depression does not necessarily require a difficult loss or change in circumstance as a trigger. More importantly, depression often occurs in the absence of any such triggers.

Depression impacts all aspects of your life. It makes your life less interesting, less important, less enjoyable, and less worthwhile. Depression negatively impacts your motivation, your energy, and your ability to experience pleasure, excitement, joy, satisfaction, and meaning. Depression tends to make you more frustrated, more impatient, and quicker to react. In addition, it also takes you longer to bounce back from most things.

To better understand the symptoms of depression, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5 outlines the criteria for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.

Five or more of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure.

1. A depressed mood nearly all of the time.

2. Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all activities most of the time.

3. Significant changes in weight or appetite nearly every day.

4. Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.

5. Feeling slowed down in your movements or restless nearly every day.

6. Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.

7. Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt nearly every day.

8. Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness nearly every day.

9. Reoccurring thoughts of death or suicide.

If you or someone you care about is experiencing symptoms of depression, it's crucial to seek help from a qualified mental health professional for a proper diagnosis and treatment. Depression is a prevalent mental illness and can be managed effectively with psychotherapy and for some people medication and psychotherapy.

If you’re looking for help with your depression, please contact me to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation.

How to Identify and Challenge Distorted Thinking

Cognitive therapy helps a person learn how to identify distorted thinking in order to change the way you think and feel. These thoughts are automatic and simply pop into our minds automatically. As a result, people tend to respond automatically to these distorted thoughts without pausing to notice whether or not the thoughts are accurate or realistic. Everyone has a flow of positive, neutral, and negative automatic thoughts throughout the day. Unfortunately, negative automatic thoughts tend to lead to irrational thoughts. From a psychological perspective, irrational thoughts:

• are not based on evidence

• mostly operate on assumptions

• are rooted in beliefs based on past experiences either positive or negative

We all have irrational thoughts. Some people will be able to recognize irrational thoughts. Other people may struggle to let go of the irrational thought and give the thought too much time and attention. Thus, irrational thoughts can cause functional impairment in behavior which can negatively impact day-to-day life.

When irrational thinking becomes a pattern, it creates a cognitive distortion. This is an error in thinking or logic that affects the way your mind processes information. Cognitive distortions refer to your mind making judgments and inferences about a situation that are not based entirely on logic or evidence. This is usually the result of past experiences. Cognitive distortions can shape your beliefs, mood, and how you view yourself, others, and the world in general.

The 10 most common cognitive distortions: (adapted from “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy”)

1. All-or-nothing thinking: You look at things in absolute, black-and-white categories.

2. Overgeneralization: You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

3. Mental filter: You dwell on the negatives.

4. Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities don’t count.

5. Jumping to conclusions: a) Mind-reading: You assume that people are reacting negatively to you when there’s no definite evidence; b) Fortune-telling: You arbitrarily predict that things will turn out badly.

6. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or you shrink their importance.

7. Emotional reasoning: You reason from how you feel: “I feel like an idiot, so I really must be one.”

8. “Should statements”: You criticize yourself (or other people) with “shoulds,” “oughts,” “musts” and “have tos.”

9. Labeling: When you label yourself or others. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you tell yourself, “I’m a jerk,” or “a fool,” or “a loser.”

10. Personalization and blame: You blame yourself for something you weren’t entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and deny your role in the problem.

How to challenge distorted thoughts:

1. Journal. When you notice a change in mood, journal about what you’re thinking and feeling. Pay particular attention to what you're telling yourself. When you’ve calmed down, review the list of distortions and determine which one fueled your intense emotion. Be curious about what thought triggered you and make note of it. Curiosity will create an opportunity for increasing self-awareness and allow you to grow and learn about what you can do differently next time.

2. Complete a thought record. A thought record is a core tool in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a one-page worksheet that you use in a difficult situation to help you notice your unhelpful ways of thinking and change your perspective to something more realistic. It focuses on the interactions between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and how to focus on factual evidence in order to think more reasonably and rationally.

3. Practice mindfulness which is the ability to focus on the present moment. It’s incredibly helpful to practice diaphragmatic breathing which allows you to focus on each inhalation and exhalation which brings you to the present moment. Practice noticing the thoughts and letting them go. Learn to recognize that you are not your thoughts.

4. Practice self-compassion. Learn how to talk to yourself as if you were talking to your best friend. Practice being kind and patient with yourself. Acknowledge the pain you feel and learn to sit with the emotion and let it go.

5. Consider working with a psychologist who is trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The therapist can provide you resources and support, teach you how to challenge your distorted thoughts, reduce anxiety and depression, and improve your mood.

Distorted thinking negatively impacts how a person, thinks about oneself, others, and the world. Be patient with yourself as you increase your awareness of your unhelpful ways of thinking. Learn to make your mental health a daily priority and learn and practice CBT coping strategies that can help reduce your irrational and distorted thoughts. Consider seeking additional support by working with a therapist who is trained in CBT.

If you’re needing help in dealing with your unhelpful thinking patterns, consider setting up a free phone consultation and we can discuss how therapy can be helpful.