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What is the difference between sadness and depression?

191 Answers
Last Updated: 05/03/2022 at 12:32pm
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United States
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Jessica McDaniel, LPC, LCPC

Licensed Professional Counselor

I have been practicing cognitive behavioral psychotherapy since 2007 with a diverse group of adult clients with various diagnoses, all races, and socioeconomic classes.

Top Rated Answers
Anonymous
November 19th, 2014 8:23pm
Alot of people feel down and upset because of something that's happened. These people get over their worry and continue with their lives. However, when you are depressed you feel down and tires and worthless, and a lot of the time, you dont even know why. People with depression tend to blame problems on themselves and keep their pain and sadness to themselves.
anaisabel
December 23rd, 2015 10:30am
I´m not an expert, so I really can explain the real difference, but I found this article that might help you to understand the main differences. Hope it useful: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201510/is-the-difference-between-sadness-and-depression
Anonymous
June 14th, 2015 12:51am
Sadness is just one of the emotions like happiness. Everyone has emotions and its just normal to feel low or high sometimes. But depression is being in constant in sadness state of mind. It effects you negatively. Worsens your abilities. Blocks your thinking and mind. Consequently, it destroys you gradually.
writingsunshine
June 21st, 2015 5:16pm
Sadness is a normal emotion that humans experience and go through. It can last a long time, but it doesn't take up every moment of most days of your life. Sadness can be relieved. There can be positivity. However, depression makes it almost impossible to feel positive, even for a short moment. Depression is constant negativity.
aliamarietalia
January 13th, 2016 3:48pm
Sadness can be fleeting, depression stays with you for a long time until you can find ways to manage your depression.
MontyMaverick41
January 13th, 2016 4:27am
Sadness is a normal human emotion. We’ve all experienced it and we all will again. Sadness is usually triggered by a difficult, hurtful, challenging, or disappointing event, experience, or situation. Depression is an abnormal emotional state, a mental state that affects our thinking, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors in pervasive and chronic ways. When we’re depressed we feel sad about everything.
Anonymous
February 11th, 2016 2:42am
Sadness is when you feel hurtful, disappointment because of something and will fade/ over time and is a normal emotion. Depression is when you feel worthless, suicidal, remorse, etc. And it is a mental illness which is abnormal as an emotion, it happen when you experience a great problem that affect the way you think
Anonymous
February 6th, 2016 2:38pm
Sadness comes and goes, depression is with you all the time
7CupsOfEspresso
December 13th, 2015 11:33am
Sadness can be cured by happiness. Depression feels like a constant emptyness inside. Like life doesn't have a purpose. Depression mocks happiness because it doesn't know how to feel happy.
Anonymous
December 13th, 2015 7:42pm
When you are sad, it means you are being upset for a couple of days and youre sadness isnt too strong. When you are depressed it means that you are being really upset for months or years and you're feelings are really strong, you get suicidal thoughts, dont see the point in life or just simply feel like youre lost and everything is black and white for you.
iAqcuainted
January 16th, 2016 8:18am
Sadness is an explainable feeling. Depression is all lengths of irrational. There's hollow and numb.
Anonymous
February 4th, 2016 6:46am
Sadness is a human response that takes place when something sad happens while depression is longer.
YouDeserveToBeOkay189
January 16th, 2016 3:50am
Simple: Sadness is more temporary and is a feeling, while depression is a diagnosable mental illness that needs to be taken seriously and is more long-term
HelpfulNick95
January 14th, 2016 2:22pm
Sadness is more of a temporary emotion, while depression is definitely a longer process and usually linked to a tragedy or shocking event, such as a loss. Sadness you can still carry throughout your day without too much compromise to your daily routine. Depression however comes with the feeling of fatigue, loneliness, and sometimes even suicidal thoughts. This is more of an extreme sadness, and usually comes as a symptom of an anxiety disorder such as SAD, GAD, and general phobias.
SoulListens
January 14th, 2016 1:09pm
Sadness is temporary. Depression is prolonged. While sadness deals more with feelings of the heart; depression has a lot to do with a wandering unstable mind. One can overcome sadness by listening to a good peace of music or watching a baby laugh. Whereas, depression needs time to settle. Time heals sadness; Depression can cause serious consequences if not encountered soon.
Crest
January 14th, 2016 3:29am
Imagine happiness like a blown tire. This blown tire is sadness. Now imagine a rim without a tire. That's depression.
Happyness7
January 13th, 2016 4:15am
Sadness is when something bad happens and you get down and depression is more deep and contains more symptoms. Depressions usually lasts more than sadness and it's very noticeable.
SiegfriedX
January 13th, 2016 3:45am
Sadness, much of the time, is a healthy reaction to certain events. It can be mild or overwhelming, but it is short lived. Sadness can grow into depression though - when that burning, sick feeling of sadness persists for so long, it's hard to imagine anything being good again. Your thought patterns change as well as your behavior, both of which further affect your mood. It is no longer a healthy response - it's developed into a medical illness: depression.
RaneemTH
January 10th, 2016 9:26pm
Depression and sadness are two different things. Many people struggle with depression think they are merely sad. and many people who are extremely sad are worried they might be depressed. Because depression is associated with its symptom of extreme sadness. Depression is a mental illness, depression is a serious condition that requires treatment. Sadness, on the other hand, is overreacting to a normative emotional state. Sadness is a normal human emotion that we've all experienced it and we all will do so, again. It is triggered by a hurtful or disappointing event, or situation. Depression is an abnormal emotional state, it is a mental illness. It affects our thinking, our emotions and our behaviors. giving myself as an instance, when I'm depressed, everything to me becomes sad. Everything is sad to me, I feel sad about everything. Depression is losing interest in the things you once found very enjoyable and lovable. Depression is the lack of motivation and energy. It is the lack of tasting joy, pleasure, happiness, and anticipation. You get angry very quickly, frustrated very quickly, lack of concentration. Quicker to break down, easily. That's what depression is, and that's what sadness is.
onthatgoodvibe
January 10th, 2016 6:01am
sadness is an emotion you feel when something doesn't go your way like getting fired your dog dies all common things to be sad about. However depression is like a sadness that doesn't go away it is a dark cloud that never goes away things that should make you happy don't sometimes people suffering from depression find themselves crying on a daily basis for no reason.
Kellie
January 10th, 2016 12:02am
The difference between sadness and depression is that depression is a reoccurring feeling of sadness.
Anonymous
January 9th, 2016 10:27pm
Depression is an abnormal emotional feeling,but sadness is a normal emotion sadness can be caused by hurtful time you could be experiencing but depression is a mental illness and were sad about everything
incrediblePurple91
January 9th, 2016 4:24pm
Sadness is only a part of depression, which is a disease or disorder of the mind. Depression includes sadness, of course, but it also includes difficulty becoming excited about things, anxiety, over-feeling (extreme sadness/anxiousness in normal social situations), and just feeling nothing sometimes. It is normal for humans to experience spells of sadness and depression in their lifetimes. It becomes a problem when it does not pass or get better on it's own, and that is when psychological help is recommended. If a saddening event has happened recently, give yourself a bit more time to overcome it before you chalk it up to depression!
Anonymous
January 9th, 2016 6:42am
Answer: There's a difference between depression and sadness. Depression causes problems with regard to a person's functioning. And the symptoms of depression typically last at least two weeks or longer. Sadness is one the of the symptoms of depression, but with depression you have more than just sadness.
Anonymous
January 8th, 2016 10:24pm
Sadness keeps your feeling and makes you feel your mistakes while depression teach us to not give shit about this life
Haniel
January 8th, 2016 11:08am
Sadness is when you still have faith on things, it takes a little time, and you are not ''shot down'' by your sadness. Depression is when you lose faith in yourself and in your life, it takes more time and you gets motionless by it. If you have depression, dont worry so munch, 7cups is here to help. You just need a candle to light your darkness, and that candle is also called ''Friend.'' =)
BadgerTheHelpful
January 8th, 2016 7:08am
Sadness, in my mind, is a state of being upset but being able to be helped by others. Where as depression is a state of sadness that makes you want to be alone and unhelped.
Anonymous
January 2nd, 2016 1:30pm
Sadness usually has a reason or cause. It tends to fade away as we move forward in life. Depression lasts longer and feels much scarier. Te voice of reason tends to leave and things along with people cease to matter. Waking up everyday becomes a burden and the hardest is trying to explain something you don't understand yourself. Sadness tends to be easier to explain as it usually has a root cause.
HakunaMatata2k
January 2nd, 2016 5:09am
Sadness is just more of a "Oh no this happened today" short term disturbance that genreally has a cause and can either be solved or gotten over easily. Depression however is a much longer process and can have a number of causes or the may be no obvious causes at all. It tends to affect you on a much larger scale and drags you down as a person rather than just making you upset it often makes you learn to hate yourself or things about you as well as dwelling on a lot of situations.
stella2298
January 2nd, 2016 10:46am
Sadness is the feeling you get when something goes south in your life. On the other hand, depression is feeling sad when everything goes well in your life.