No, it is a fact. If you actually spoke to people with depression you would know that.

> Quantifying that nothing in someones life (or their past) is causing them sadness

I didn't say sadness, I said depression. They are not the same.

> This charade

Wow.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've never experienced depression, and don't know anyone with it.

If that should change you'll quickly realize just how mistaken you were, and you'll feel bad for ever saying things like this.

To put it in context: It's like telling someone blind who still has physical eyes "You can see, stop pretending."

Sometimes depression does have a cause. Some long-standing cognitive dissonance. I finally found some relief when I left the religion of my upbringing and embraced agnostic atheism/humanism. Don't let the true fact that depression often seems causeless stop you from making life improvements or searching for hidden burdens.

Because peoples interpretations of the situation are believable enough to call fact. Subjective interpretations are not reality. If you think they are then we dont have much to argue here. I have experienced depression for most of my adult life.

Is your username based on your depression?

Depression is not sadness; to the extent that it hmay have environmental or experiential contributing factors, the relation between them and the resulting depression is very different than the relation between circumstances causing sadness and the emotion of sadness, and treating depression is generally not a matter of dealing with issues producing an emotional response.