3 ideas
Depression is not an excess of sadness but the loss of the capacity to feel, act, and want. Its true opposite is vitality, the ability to engage and respond, which can include grief. Seen this way, the goal of treatment is restored aliveness rather than good mood, and sadness in proportion to circumstance counts as health, not relapse.
Asking whether a depression is 'chemical' or a response to life events is a spurious split, because every experience, including grief, love, and trauma, is also a change in brain chemistry. Labeling a depression biological does not make it any less the person's own, and labeling it circumstantial does not make medication inappropriate. Treatment choices should follow what works, not a metaphysics of blame or authenticity.
In small Inuit settlements in Greenland, whole families shared cramped quarters through months of winter darkness, and a strong norm developed against voicing one's troubles so as not to burden others who could not escape them. Solomon found that depression was common but largely unspoken, and that suicide rates were high.