It's clear you don't understand what depression is. Neither did I until it took away my creativity, imagination, enthusiasm and the ability to enjoy anything at

It's clear you don't understand what depression is. Neither did I until it took away my creativity, imagination, enthusiasm and the ability to enjoy anything at all. Depression is not "feeling sad", it's an illness that makes you psychologically and physically sick, and you can't "snap out of it". It may be that your friend isn't actually depressed and is just too lazy to work. But if she is in fact depressed, you're not doing her or anyone else any good by saying she should just "suck it up and get on with her life", because she can't, and being reminded of that is just going to make it worse. Depression feeds on itself. She may look fine to you, but you can't see if someone's depressed. We tend to hide what it's really like, this absolutely maddening feeling in our heads, the constant headaches, dizziness and mental and physical fatigue is not something you want to announce to the world. Nobody except my doctor knows about my depression. I don't know about the statistics presented in the article, but I'm an example of the economic and social cost attributed to these illnesses. I've wasted a year of my life on depression, during which time I've been unable to work. Luckily, so far I've been able to live off my savings but if I'd been needing support from the state that cost would've doubled. I've never been the most social and outgoing person, but with the depression I became grumpy, uninterested, whiny and generally a little unpleasant to be around.