Dennis Perrin wrote:
>
> Hell, I've gone through some seriously dark periods in
> my life, emotionally and financially, so it's not as if I'm blind to that
> part of existence.
Some years ago my psychiatrist recounted an anecdote from his early days of practice (which predated the coming of anti-depressant meds). One of his patients had the following experiences within one month: Her busband was killed in an accident and one on crippled in the same accident. In addition she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer. And while I can't remember how he quoted her exact words, the gist of what she had to say was this: She of course felt awfully bad about he husband, son, and her own medical condition. But she also felt really good: her depression happened at that point to be in "remission" (depression is very rarely continuous: it occurs in fits and starts).
There is simply no comparison to be made between what one feels in response to external disaster (death, illness, injury, financial disaster, etc.) and what one feels as the result of clinical depression. This has been my own experience and that of every sufferer from depression (or bipolar) that I have ever talked to. And on those lists of "worst things to say to depressed people" that I mentioned in an earlier post, one remark that _always_ gets listed is some statement such as yours above.
Carrol