“Every day is a second chance”

What is important to delineate here is the difference between a depressed mood and clinical depression, as they are not the same despite the widespread use of the term in colloquial language. When people say they are feeling depressed, they are most often referring to a depressed mood marked by sadness; however, a depressed mood can take other forms, such as irritability and/or a general feeling of emptiness or lack of emotion all together. 

A depressed mood may occur secondary to a specific trigger, such as the end of a relationship, loss of a loved one (within the context of grief), or a disruption in everyday leisure activities secondary to a pandemic. In other cases, there may not appear to be an identifiable factor precipitating your depressed mood and you may be experiencing clinical depression from a more physiological cause, such as an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. In other words, it is more biological than environmental. 

Within clinical depression, individuals experience not only depressed mood, but also a loss of interest in things once enjoyable, changes in appetite, decreased energy, alterations in sleep patterns, feelings of worthlessness or irrational guilt, difficulty concentrating, and/or suicidal thoughts. 

Aside from the symptoms present, the degree of impairment or disruption to your daily functioning is an important factor when considering a diagnosis and developing a treatment plan.