[jimjam]

I have been married to a woman who suffers/suffered from severe depression and have become an armchair expert on the subject. Depression cannot be diagnosed/defined/described with complete certainty in any one person like, say, a broken bone can. Causes can be arrived at via educated speculation at best. Depression originates from the body's most complex organ …. the brain. My wife was married for 30 years to a controlling bully. Trapped in a situation not unlike a shitty job. She was not depressed prior to her marriage but, I speculate, her mental wiring predisposed her to depression. The wrong life circumstances would and did bring out her predisposition to depression. She did also have a chemical imbalance as evidenced by her favorable response to medication. The favorable response never lasted however as she was trapped into a life with a man who would berate her for hanging the toilet paper "backwards". I speculate that her depression had 2 causes: chemical and situational. She eventually fled and is currently unmedicated and relatively steady.