What do you have to be sad about?

As someone diagnosed with depression, I hate this question. The point of depression is that I’m sad without really having a reason to be. I can’t help it. If I had a reason to be sad, then my feelings could be considered sadness. I’ve gone through some hard times in my life where I did feel very sad because of my circumstances, but for the most part my life has been pretty good. Even so, I was diagnosed with depression when I was 18 years old. I was sad all the time, I didn’t want to go to classes or even leave my dorm room, and I started self-harming. All I wanted to do was sleep most of the time. I had a dorm room to myself, so I spent most of my time isolated from others. I would occasionally leave my room to go get ice from the ice machine downstairs or use the bathroom, but some days even leaving my room to take a shower was too much for me. My dad was in the army and deployed to Iraq at the time, but other than that I didn’t really have anything to be sad about. I was smart, I got into a good university, I had a boyfriend, my family was supportive, and I was financially comfortable. By all standards, I should have been happy right? Unfortunately, I wasn’t. After a few months of self-harming, I finally decided to see a doctor to discuss medication. I was put on Zoloft, and I expected things to get better. My life continued to go on and I continued to achieve things that people would expect from me in hopes that I would be happier. I graduated from college, got married, moved to a new state with my husband, and even finished grad school. I still wasn’t happy though. Finally, I attempted suicide. After seven years on varying doses of Zoloft with no improvement, I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t fathom the idea that I was so young and had so many more years to live in my current state of misery. A couple weeks before this attempt I took a genetic test that my psychiatrist recommended. While I was in the hospital recovering from my attempt, my doctors were able to get the results from my psychiatrist. Turns out, my body doesn’t absorb SSRIs. Over those seven years, multiple doctors had increased the dosage of my medication, but no one ever recommended I try anything else. After getting those results, my medication was changed to a different drug class. It took a while to adjust to the change, but the results have been amazing. I finally feel like a “normal” person instead of someone that just wants to lay around and wait for their life to end. Before, my energy continued to decline over the years which made it hard to find and hold down a job, but now I have so much more energy and I feel like I can live a normal life. I still don’t have anything to be sad about, but now I don’t feel sad either. I do still have depression though. People like to think there’s a reason and that you can cure depression, but that isn’t always the case. Depression and sadness are NOT the same thing. Sadness is a feeling that you experience, and depression is a medical condition. Some people have success treating their depression with therapy, and that’s great. Others need medication though, and that’s fine too. So, my depression isn’t gone, but it is treated with medication just like any physical health condition would be. Just like those with chronic physical conditions, I follow up with a doctor routinely and take my medications on a regular schedule. I don’t expect my condition to be magically cured, so I fully intend to continue taking medications for the rest of my life, and I’m fine with that.