M y daughter’s been married for two years already and I still find myself bursting into tears occasionally. I can be washing dishes and realize that she isn’t there telling me some hilarious story and the tears come gushing. I’m worried it means that I’m clinically depressed that something’s very wrong with me that I’m never going to be happy again.”
We know that there are medicines that can help ease our low moods. However this has led many of us to equate negative emotions with mental illness. Low mood can exist when mental illness doesn’t! Low mood is the feeling of sadness in one form or another (grief hurt emptiness discouragement despair loneliness disappointment etc).
If the parent in our example is able to feel happy even when bouts of sadness occur if she’s eating and sleeping according to her regular patterns if she’s able to concentrate and problem-solve when she needs to has enough energy to carry out her daily tasks and if she otherwise lacks the symptoms of a major depressive episode then she isn’t ill. She’s sad.
In our example the mother is still mourning the loss of a cherished relationship. When a child moves out of the home a real loss occurs — and is felt — for years afterward. It’s normal to feel bouts of sadness on and off for years after a meaningful loss whether that loss involves a person a situation like a job or a location like a country or a home.
