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Smiling Depression

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If you were to ask someone what they think is the most important emotion, what would they say? After asking family members and friends I soon realized almost everyone agreed on happiness over any other emotion. Some people said it was what gave them the drive to get up in the morning while others spoke of it as some sort of ultimate goal in life. I can believe this because many people see happiness as a one-off thing that they can go out and buy for themselves and some people seek it to give their life purpose by forever seeking true happiness. Whether it be something that the beliefs within their religion point towards or not everyone wants to be happy. To start I can say that neither of these things can really describe the way I see happiness in my life. The way I see it, if everyone around me whom I care for is happy, I can be happy. Whether it involves me putting on a sort of façade to keep them that way or not I try my …show more content…

Rita goes into great length on this subject in her publication Smiling Depression: Nothing to Smile About where she defines this form of depression as being someone who smiles and appears happy on the outside while on the inside they are actually suffering from depressive symptoms. Another thing she talks about in this article is how many people who suffer from smiling depression do not even see it as a form of depression because of how they undermine their own feelings in order to appear differently to others. One of the scariest things about smiling depression is how those with it may be at a higher risk of having suicidal thoughts, as said in her article in Psychology Today “..those suffering from smiling depression have the energetic ability to plan and follow through.” Thankfully there are many ways to treat this including psychotherapy and simply speaking to those around you about how you

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