Can't understand why you're getting downvoted. My experience with depression is like yours. It's easy to romanticize mild depression. It's impossible to romanticize serious depression: an utter inability to feel, which paradoxically results in a sucking black hole of numb despair; not being able to get out of bed, never mind go to work, talk to friends, or engage with the world in any meaningful way; and ultimately suicide. Depression is not "sadness." It's not stoicism. It's a complete disconnection from reality with zero upside.