You speak of emotional numbing, where the body cannot produce the feelings you described. Being depressed is a spectrum on the lower side. Your baseline mood is below normal. A hug won't make you happy for as long as it does others, but you'll still laugh every bit as hard at movies. Your mood will just settle at a lower level than others. However, sad moods last longer. You'll lament more over a death or a breakup, and it's much easier to fly into a suicidal state and much harder to recover.

There is of course normalcy and there is even a state known as joy, or joyfulness. It's the opposite: good feelings last longer, you shrug off breakups and deaths quicker, and it's easier to fly into tears of joy or states of gratitude and ecstasy. I have suffered from Major Depressive Disorder for years before as a combat veteran, and am now on a state know as joy. It's brought on by a litany of things, but having close friends that care is the biggest difference by far. Mihal Chisenmihal wrote about both these states in his book "Flow". Check it out.

Before I left the military I was Honor Guard, and I buried dead people for 8 hours a day. Mostly suicides. The tearful families would get to you, so the best defense was liquor, which produced the emotional numbing I described. With a **** diet and being an alcoholic, I felt nothing. No sadness, no happiness. Nothing. I was happy when I drank, I could laugh at jokes, but otherwise I felt like a robot surrounded by leaky humans. Once everyone was crying but me at a funeral, including my partner. I thought it was funny and had to stifle a laugh.

I never want to go back to those times. I was a monster.

Here's also a state known as manic depressive, but I won't get into it.

5 years I've seen you dispense wisdom on this site, and they were the best damn years of my life.

as someone that was clinically depressed for 6 years
no, i'm not joking.

you don't get the extreme lows.
you're always kind of low.

Can't imagine what you must've been through man. I've been pretty blue for years now, what you said "you can feel joy, but not happiness" hits close to home. I hope you're doing better.

aye, i've gotten through mine.
eventually had to go to a psychologist for it though.
but been a year and a half of doing well now.

I've always felt like psychologist weren't worth it because to me they get paid to care. But still, I'm glad to hear you're doing better. Hopefully it stays that way man.

thanks, and i hope you do well as well.

mood swings are not typical of depression, they're bipolar tendencies.

Former depressive myself, mood swings were definitely not a part of it. My suicidal ideation was not from extreme emotion, it was from hopelessness and emptiness.

I did nothing because I felt nothing from it. The only real emotions I had left were perpetual numbness and love for my fiance.

Huh, kinda reminds me of when i played minecraft 24/7

There's one good thing to it. It's made a great actor out of me.

Since I have to exaggerate all my feelings to look like a normal person around others, I've made a dangerously good character to play in their presence.

It feels nasty sometimes, the way I lie to them.

I'm just hoping the good times appear in the horizon someday, because I have no idea where to sail. I'm actually sort of lucky, my case isn't totally crippling.

listening to music in your bed for 3-5 hours then sleep 1 hour so you can go to school and sleep there with eating 1 and 1/2 half of a meal each day

i've had depression for some time and it kinda "stopped" 3 weeks ago, but now it's coming back. Working out is kinda the only hobby i have but since my depression i kinda lacked motivation. I also became more paranoid and worried about small things and i couldn't sleep and i had a hard time to concentrate. It has been quite a lot more than what i wrote but what I'm really saying is: Depression really sucks and no one should have it.

thank you bud, i appreciate it.