Everyone gets the blues now and then. In fact, it's perfectly normal to feel sad and discouraged at times. It's also quite appropriate to feel grief after a loss. However, when a low mood doesn't go away, the person may be suffering from clinical depression. In other words, depression that is serious enough to require treatment. It is one of the most painful, but also most common and treatable, of all mental illnesses. According to …showed first 75 words of 1420 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1420 total…become depressed. People between the ages of 25 and 44 are particularly venerable. But depression can also hit late in life, when its symptoms may be mistaken for senility. And it can strike children and adolescents, in whom it may be linked to bad grades, family problems, and trouble with drugs, alcohol, or sex. Women are more likely than men to develop depression, but the illness still affects one in 10 men at some point in their lives.