To answer your rhetorical: It can be both because depression makes boring things terrifying in a way non-depressed people find boring again. shrug Anyway, I do

To answer your rhetorical: It can be both because depression makes boring things terrifying in a way non-depressed people find boring again. shrug Anyway, I don't want to go too deeply into this, so I'll just say you're actually not far off from what I'm saying. What saddens me about "This is Water" is the fact that it's so close to something that might have been really helpful to him. He's talking about these daily experiences, and noticing how he's feeling. He feels bad. That's good; feeling bad helps. And what he thinks next is... You have a choice of how to feel. Think about everyone who feels even worse. You can decide what you care about. Don't think of an elephant. That isn't CBT, nor anything therapeutic-- that's depression, at its most pernicious and deadly.