I found Andrew Solomon’s book on depression uplifting. It gave me insight and helpful information. Compared to his tour-de-force of research and useful analysis my comment here is a good deal more glib.

I think they’re are many people who should be depressed but aren’t. I would call them the terminally un-depressed. Whatever happens they are not going to get depressed about it even although their lives are in a total mess. That they escape depression I contend is due to some other intervening factor in their psychological make-up, probably something in itself not very healthy. This may be a developed eccentricity or a marked capacity for fantasy or denial. Over use of humour can be a telling factor too. Failing that, there is always medication or substance abuse.

The impulse to avoid depression might lead to other kinds of mental disturbance. Yet some depression if allowed to play its part might actually have a corrective effect and, assuming it doesn’t take on major proportions or become clinical as in Andrew Solomon’s case, may help in finding a solution to emotional problems.

To be less glib, I should say that it is really grief avoidance that is the issue here. It is natural and proper to grieve and doing so appropriately is part of a healing process. Solomon says that depression is effectively chronic grief. Grief should be transient. When it persists it becomes depression and nobody needs that. But trying to get around grief in response to bad experience is unhealthy. There are people who do that and I think they shouldn’t. That is all I’m saying.