Feeling miserable, sad or down is normal and we all feel this way from time to time throughout our lives. These feelings don’t tend to last too long and shouldn't interfere with our lives. We usually cope with these times of down and misery. However, with clinical depression these feelings last for much longer (weeks, months or years) and they are so bad that they interfere with your life.As with our everyday feelings of low mood, there will sometimes be an obvious reason for becoming depressed, sometimes not. It can be a disappointment, a frustration, or that you have lost something - or someone – important to you. There is often more than one reason, and these will be different for different people.
Other people may think that you have just "given in" or that you are just "weak", as if you have a choice in the matter. The fact is, there comes a point at which depression is much more like an illness ...
I got a friend request from a cute guy on MySpace the other day. As I was perusing his page, I saw that he described himself as "straight-acting" in his About Me section. It certainly wasn't the first time I'd seen the phrase, but for some reason, it jumped out at me this time. It got me thinking about how often I hear someone gay use the expression "straight-acting" to describe another gay man or even themselves. The more I thought about it, the more offensive it became. I'm sure I've been guilty of using it in the past, but more recently, I've come to realize just how damaging the term can be -- both within and outside the LGBT community. 
