As someone who suffered from a major depressive episode that nearly cost me my life, I certainly acknowledge it as a serious disease no different than cancer.

As someone who suffered from a major depressive episode that nearly cost me my life, I certainly acknowledge it as a serious disease no different than cancer. But thinking of it purely in those terms implies that the development of depression can be attributed and therefore remedied by addressing chemical irregularities in the brain. I used to believe that. It put me under stress and fear that somehow, randomly, because of some defected biological mechanism, I would fall victim once again to another episode. It took me years to finally understand that that's an oversimplification of a highly complex illness. The chemical irregularities that characterize depression are influenced more so by emotional stresses and the interaction of an individual within the social environment, than say, genetics (it can increase the probability of development, but it needs to be "activated" by the environment). I think the best way to approach depression would be to identify and understand the condition not in isolation, but contextually as a coping mechanism to the stresses surrounding us.