If You’ve Been Feeling Off Lately, These 5 Signs May Mean It’s More Than Just Regular Sadness
Jamie East | Pexels When you're feeling down about your life and yourself, do you wonder if you're depressed or just plain, regular sad? Should you be worried about your mood shifting, or should you just ride it out? Sadness versus depression: there's a fine line between the two emotions.
While there are many variations of depression, there are two fundamental forms. Chemical depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, one that's often genetic or the result of trauma. Situational depression is usually a short-term sadness, often brought on by a life event. As clinical therapist Lynn Zakeri explains, sometimes sadness is just sadness, and other times it's a sign of something more clinical.
If you’ve been feeling off lately, these 5 signs may mean it’s more than just sadness:
1. Something specific triggered your sadness
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One way to tell if you are depressed or just sad is to consider what is happening in your life right now. Has your dog died? Is a parent sick? Have you lost your job? Did you have a car accident?
Sometimes, life events happen that make us feel overwhelmed and sad. It happens. The results of those life events can cause situational depression, a short-term feeling of depression that, while very real, will most likely pass in time.
The key question to ask yourself is: did you feel this way before the event happened, or did your mood change because of the event?
If you were fine before the event happened, then you are most likely just sad, and the depression will pass with time. But if you were feeling this way before, you just might be dealing with chemical depression.
Zakeri notes that any significant change, from a move to a job loss to a relationship ending, can really throw people off emotionally, but when feelings persist without a clear trigger at all, that's a meaningful signal worth paying attention to.
2. You've been feeling sad for a while and it's not getting better
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Of course, after your dog dies, you're going to feel sad for a while. Just looking at the chair they slept on can send you down into a dark hole. But with time, while the pain and sadness are still there, it will ease, and you will be able to go on with your life.
If you find that you aren't feeling better with time but, in fact, are feeling the same or worse, then it could be that you are dealing with chemical depression, caused by something more systemic than a life event.
So, try to look back on the past few days, weeks, months, and years and see where your moods have been. Have you been up and down as life throws curveballs at you, or do you find that you have been down more often than up?
If you can't remember how the past period of time has been, start keeping a mood chart. Keep track of how your mood is on a daily basis. On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being great and one being horrible, note where you are each day. If you're consistently below a five, that's a piece of information worth taking seriously.
The American Psychiatric Association describes situational depression as an adjustment disorder, noting that symptoms typically begin within three months of a triggering event and should begin to ease as a person adapts. When they don't ease, that's the dividing line.
3. You feel hopeless and despondent
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The hallmark of chemical depression is hopelessness. That feeling that you will never be happy again, that you will never love or be loved, that life isn't worth living, and why should you even bother anyway?
When you're struggling with sadness and situational depression, generally your outlook isn't hopeless. When my dog died, I was sad, but I didn't struggle with questioning my life or examining my choices. I was just sad that she wasn't here with me, and I missed her.
So if you find that you are struggling with hopelessness and despair, you might consider that you are dealing with more than just sadness and that it's time to get help.
A 2024 study explained that hopelessness is among the most specific predictors of depression, strongly associated with symptoms including sadness, low self-esteem, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. It distinguishes clinical depression from ordinary grief in a way few other symptoms do.
4. Your sadness keeps getting worse
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Depression gets worse the longer it goes untreated. It's a sad fact, but it's true. Do you find that your depression is worsening over time? Has it come and gone in recent years, but are you finding that it is present more often than not? Are you finding it harder to deal with than before?
Usually, when you're sad, the sadness doesn't progressively get worse. Instead, it gets better. When my mom died, the first few weeks and months were incredibly painful. I was sad, sad, sad. But as life has gone on and time has passed, my sadness has lessened. Yes, I still have moments when I'm deeply sad, but that sadness passes. It certainly hasn't gotten worse.
If you find that your sad mood is getting worse and not better, you might be struggling with depression. Researchers note that between 70% and 90% of people with depression eventually respond well to treatment, which is genuinely encouraging. But getting there requires actually reaching out. Learning how to manage it, rather than waiting it out, is important.
5. Depression runs in your family
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In my family, depression goes back generations. My great-grandfather was institutionalized for 40 years, and my grandfather was subjected to horrific treatments in the 1950s.
I was diagnosed with depression when I was 42 and learned then that, in many cases, depression and other mood disorders are passed down in the family. Consider your family. Does your mother or your sister struggle with their moods? Does your dad get angry easily, or does your child disappear into their room some days?
It's very likely that if someone else in your family struggles as you do, then you very well might be chemically depressed, and it might be time to get help. A 2024 study analyzed national health insurance data for the entire population of Taiwan and found that first-degree relatives of people with depression were nine times more likely to develop a serious form of it themselves. This is a striking reminder that knowing your family history isn't just personal context; it's clinically meaningful information.
That doesn't mean depression is your destiny if it runs in your family. Researchers have found that the interplay of genetics, environment, and personal experiences is key to the development of depression, meaning genes load the gun but don't necessarily pull the trigger. But if you recognize the pattern in your family and you're feeling it yourself, that combination is worth bringing to a doctor.
Understanding the difference between sadness and depression is critical. If you find that nothing significant has happened in your life, that your hopelessness has been with you for a while and is getting worse, and if mood disorders run in your family, then you might be struggling with chemical depression. Reach out to your primary care doctor to see what kind of treatment they might recommend.
If you're sad because of a recent loss or life event, but your sadness hasn't lasted long or gotten worse, then you might be dealing with situational depression. Take care of yourself, eat and sleep well, exercise, and see if it passes with time. If it doesn't, reach out to your primary care doctor.
Depression and sadness don't have to hold you back from living your life. Face them head-on, learn how to manage them, and move forward. =
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based certified life coach and mental health advocate. She works exclusively with women to help them to be all that they want to be in this crazy world in which we live.
