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Clinical depression is a mental, emotional and physical illness. It is actually caused by chemicals, or rather the lack-of certian chemcials in the brain.

the deeper the depression...the more physcial symptoms one notices. In the height of a major depression the illness can be VERY physcial.

during and for a while after a major depressive episode (i've had 2 in my life, the first lasting a year and the second lasting 2 years)...i literally "dropped out of life" for long periods of time.

Fatigue is a big symptom. sometimes so severe that had it not been for my mom coming over to my house to make me a sandwhich or bring me a glass of water then i would not have eaten that day....as it was everything i could do to get myself out of bed to walk to the bathroom as needed.

Lowered immune system is another. when i get sick...i stay sick for months (and sometimes nearly a year with sinus infections and bronchitis) because my system just can't heal as quickly as normal.

IBS- Irritable Bowel Syndrom....i never had it until the onset of my depressions and whenever i drop back down, it is always worse. I know of others who have dealt with this.

Stress related physcial symptoms - when depressed we are less able to handle stress and so our bodies become literally sick with stress. My most outward symptom of stress during my depressions is acne....my face complete breaks out worse than when i was a teenager. And during my last major depressive episode....more than half my hair fell out - luckily it was only noticable in that my hair went from being too "full" to be able to clip up with most large hair clips....to being able to put it all up in one very small one.

then of course there is weight gain or weight loss that comes with depressions....and for many like me....our bodies just ache. Some get migraines or specific pains like back and arms and legs. I just ache all over.

Sleep - depression affects sleep quite a bit. we either sleep more or sleep less. When depressed...i always sleep more. I've sleep for days at a time where i only was awake for brief periods of 5 minutes to an hour to smoke, eat or go the bathroom and then literally could not stay awake any longer.

there is more, but that's all i can think of off the top of my head. most people don't realize any of these things about depression. But when you've been through it or seen someone close to you go through it then you realize that the best way to describe how major depression wrecks a person physcially is to explain that it's a lot like going thru chemo-therapy for cancer patients.

but as i said.....there are many levels of depression and the worst phsyical symptoms are tied to the worst levels of depression. So moderate or low-grade depressions would have such severe phsycial symptoms to deal with.

hugs,
Jenna