Can depression be cured? Is coping with depression the same as being cured of depression? Simple answer is no.

Depression is a mental illness that doesn’t get cured by any medication or treatment. Only a lucky few, maybe 10%, actually come out of depression behaving and feeling like they did before being depressed. These people for whatever reasons felt depressed. They were diagnosed, got treated, and felt better. Once cured, they stopped taking medications or going to therapy. That’s the dream, the ideal situation for someone who is depressed. But in 90% of cases, it doesn’t happen.

You learn to cope with depression. You learn to deal with the darkness so it doesn’t take you over the edge into death. You understand why people stop talking to you or being your friend. It’s fear, stigma, and plain old being worn out from your attitude and behaviour. You realize that the darkness will stay with you forever. You will eventually see the light again and feel happy, but your happiness will no longer be the happiness others feel. Your happiness will be a more profound, true reflection of you.

I am not cured. I am not healed. I am not in recovery. Recovery means there will come a time when I can wake up day after day, month after month, year after year not feeling depressed. That will never happen.

I am as recovered as I can be – for now. A few months from now I may feel better. I may enjoy things I don’t today or take pleasure from the simple things life offers. Or I might relapse. I might just go backwards in a sudden storm or gently slide into the familiar darkness. All the effort I’ve put into recovery might seem lost to an outsider, but I know better. I know my relapse is my mind, body, and soul telling me I’ve tried too much too fast. I need all three parts of my being to be synched. My relapse is just a time out, however long I need it to be, before I can go ahead once more.

So how would I describe someone who is depressed and seems to be getting better? I would simply say you have learned how to cope with depression and you’re doing a good job of it at this moment. Tomorrow might be another story – either better or worse. But I will never say you are cured.