Welcome to this week's Sunday Chops. Mickey here, hoping you are having a lovely weekend.

Me? I've started eating mince pies. Don't at me. This week in the Chops we're chatting

because, as we're seemingly constantly told, it's okay to not be okay and it's good to talk,

but what do those sound bites really mean and how helpful are they for people dealing with depression?

I got on the Zoom with Maddie Dilly, managing director of the Blurk Foundation, a brilliant

social enterprise dedicated to helping those affected by depression and anxiety. And we chatted

stigma, self-stigma, self-care, misconceptions, peer support and how do you go can be there for Ted.

Now then, as you know, I've been a journalist for about a million years and yet every now and again,

I get out of an interview and think, bloody hell noon, why didn't you ask that, you dopey sod.

With Maddie, the question I very much fail to ask was quite a simple one. What is depression?

And it's partly because as someone who was first diagnosed with depression in my late teens,

I know all too well or rather all too unwell what depression is. And I also know it really

doesn't manifest in the same ways for people and then of course people cope with those manifestations

that are very different, very differently too. I also know depression is a very real illness

with very real symptoms. It is not a sign of weakness or something you can snap out of by pulling

yourself together. God, I wish. Also, and this is something I think a lot of people struggle to

understand. There's not necessarily a trigger for it. There's not always an obvious event or

something you can put your finger on and say, that's why I'm depressed. That's where it all stems

from. That's why it's happening. It can and does just happen. And symptoms range. They range from

lasting feelings of unhappiness and hopelessness to losing interest in the things you used to enjoy

and just feeling very tearful. There can be physical symptoms too, such as feeling constantly tired,

sleeping badly, having no appetite or sex drive, and you know various aches and pains.

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