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Depression is a complicated illness and shouldn't be assumed not to sometimes look like an unmotivated mental state.

• dan00 16y ago
  If someone can't work for a few days, or even a week, just hangs around watching tv, playing video games or reading, and after this time is again able to work, then this isn't a depression, but just the need for a rest. I have been suffering of depressions, and it's nothing like an unmotivated mental state. By equalizing it, you're trivializing depressions. They're real mental pain, they're about loosing any enjoyment.
  • derefr 16y ago
    > If someone can't work for a few days, or even a week, just hangs around watching tv, playing video games or reading, and after this time is again able to work, then this isn't a depression, but just the need for a rest. This isn't really what I was talking about, though. It's more being unable to work for months at a time, barely managing to push oneself to scrape by, and then having months of easy, limitless energy. Neither period is predictable—I don't become any more akrasic when I do difficult or stressful work, and no amount of pronounced, conscious "relaxing" (avoiding all stressors, doing only fun things, etc.) will give me energy back any more quickly.
    • dan00 16y ago
      Hmm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder?
  • philwelch 16y ago
    A lot of mental illnesses work that way: there's a pattern of behavior that in and of itself isn't that uncommon, except it's to such a degree that it impairs one's ability to live a healthy life. Everyone has ups and downs. Not everybody has a mood disorder.