I was depressed once for ten years and didn’t realize that it was fixable.  I thought it was normal to have no fun and be disagreeable and grumpy and out of sorts all the time.  Now that I’ve fixed it, I’m much better off, and everyone around me is better off.  I enjoy enjoyable activities, I’m pleasant to deal with, and I’m only out of sorts when I’m tired or hungry, as is normal. If you think you might be depressed, you might be right, so try fixing it.  The cost seems minor compared to the possible benefit (at least it was in my case.). I don’t think there’s a high possibility of severe downside consequences, but I’m not a psychiatrist, so what do I know. I had been depressed for a few weeks at a time in my teens and twenties and I thought I knew how to fix it: withdraw from stressful situations, plenty of sleep, long walks in the rain.  (In one case I talked to a therapist, which didn’t feel like it helped.)  But then it crept up on me slowly in my forties and in retrospect I spent ten years being depressed. So fixing it started like this.  I have a good friend at work, of many years standing.  I’ll call him Barkley, because that‘s not his name.  I was riding in the car with my wife, complaining about some situation at work.  My wife said “well, why don’t you ask Barkley to help?”  And I said “Ahh, Barkley doesn’t care.”  And my wife said “What are you saying?  Of course he cares about you.”  And I realized in that moment that I was detached from reality, that Barkley was a good friend who had done many good things for me, and yet my brain was saying he didn’t care.  And thus my brain was lying to me to make me miserable.  So I think for a bit and say “I think I may be depressed.”  And my wife thinks (she told me later) “No duh, you’re depressed. It’s been obvious for years to people who know you.”  But she says “What would you like to do about it?” And I say, “I don’t know, suffer I guess, do you have a better idea?”  And she says “How about if I find you a