How can you tell the difference between grief and depression? Grief and depression can look very similar. Both are characterized by low mood, a lack of motivation, a sense of hopelessness, and difficulty enjoying life. Depression and grief can also share physical characteristics, such as difficulty eating or sleeping.If you’ve suffered a significant loss and don’t have a history of depression, the pain you’re feeling is probably grief. You might feel like it’s never going to end, but with time and the support of people who care about you, you’ll find that your grief will become less intense and all-consuming.If, on the other hand, you’re experiencing these same kinds of painful feelings and haven’t experienced a significant loss, it’s more likely that you’re suffering from depression. In some cases, grief can turn into depression. This is more likely to happen if you have unresolved issues with the person you’ve lost—if, for example, you feel that you mistreated the person, and didn’t have a chance to make amends before they died.How does grief-related depression look different from ordinary grief? When a person close to you dies, you can feel like your life has come to a halt. It can feel like all the color and vitality have been permanently drained from the world. You might feel like you’re never going to be able to be close to another person, or enjoy life again. Little by little by little, those feelings change. Life starts to feel more normal. You still miss the person you’ve lost, but you’re able to move on and enjoy other people, your work, and your other interests again.Unlike ordinary grief, depression doesn’t run a natural course. You can tend to feel stuck in your depression until you seek help. You might feel that you shouldn’t feel grief for as long as you do, and put pressure on yourself to “get over it.” In truth, grief has no timetable. You move through grief at your own pace. If, however, you feel that your grief has become intractable—if you’ve become stuck and can’t find your way out—you may be experiencing depression in addition to grief. In that case, it makes sense to see a therapist who can help you understand, and move through those feelings.Could your depression really be unrecognized grief?Depression that results from losses early in life—the death of a parent, for example—can involve unrecognized grief. If you lost a parent at a young age, the way you experienced grief depended on how well the people around you were able to help you make sense of it. Your surviving parent was probably devastated by the loss. You might have tried to protect that parent from further grief by burying your own feelings. Perhaps the adults in your life were so consumed by their own grief that they offered reassurance, without giving you the opportunity to experience all of your feelings.If your depression is the result of an early loss, therapy can help you to make the connection. Moving on involves recognizing that, for whatever reason, you haven’t completed the grieving process. When you’re able to integrate the feelings you weren’t able to fully process earlier in your life, you can move through your grief, and move forward in your life.Does grief always involve a significant loss, or can it be caused by something more subtle? There are all kinds of occasions for grief that aren’t as dramatic as losing a parent, a spouse, a child, or a close relative or friend. Loss is an inevitable part of life. In your life, there are missed opportunities or things you wished for that never happened. As you age, you experience the loss that comes with not being able to do all the things you were able to do when you were younger. You miss people who move away, and places from which you’ve moved away. Grieving and loss are the inevitable accompaniments of caring about people, places and things. If you never grieved, it would mean that nothing mattered to you.Click to learn more about depression therapy and treatment with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.Wondering if mindfulness can help with depression? Click here to find out.