I'm sorry to hear you're struggling and want to send you a word of encouragement. Many of us understand it because we all go through this one way or another. As for your question on difference between grief and depression, what triggers the sadness is probably the key.

https://www.verywellmind.com/grief-and-depression-1067237

Thanks for the article. Yep! My birthday is coming up. I know that sounds so selfish . I guess I am really just missing my best friend. Tomorrow is another day.

Happy birthday Kim. Do something to make you feel good. You deserve to be happy!!

It is hard to tell the difference. My Doctor put me on Zoloft to help with the depression and anxiety. I loss my Dear, Sweet Husband, Chester, to Kidney Cancer on 02/15/2016, I thought I would feel better by now, but I actually feel worse in many ways, I have lost my appetite.

I just wanted to say to Gloria that my husband died of cardiac arrest on the same day as your husband 02/15/2016. As far as the difference between grief and depression, they both feel the same to me.

Kim,

In many ways both grief or depression resembles. Both react easily as symptoms of loss and disappointment. Both we strongly dislike. And both can easily come between you and a cheerful life.

Thing is that grief is more like an allergy; that is, grief usually leaves a person with a sensitivity to the new onset of certain sad thoughts and a powerful reaction from a memory of likable things shared with a person one grieves, the branch of sad feelings are traceable to a particular reaction to events or obvious emotional exposures. With grief, you usually can identify the moods encircling you. Grief is a conscience toward the enduring of wrongful, unacceptable suffering. In contrast, depression is generally classified as futile, unknown perplexed despair. Grief usually does not focus specifically on feelings of low self-esteem, or how you see yourself as a person. Though there is a similar shared feeling of guilt in both situations, which guilt is very common with depression, yet depression or depressive disorder is more proportional with the cause of a biological symptom.

In the strict sense, depression has many features, most same as grief; though depressive disorder is at times gross impairment, which grief may indeed lead to severe physical & emotional issues.

I hope for you a comfort, and especially a happy feeling as you approach the celebration of your birthday, Kim. Great sized hugs to you!

It has been almost two years, and I honestly believe it is worse now than when it first happened. I sometimes wonder if I have died as well because I can't seem to connect with the land of the living. I guess I am the only one out of all his family and friends who hasn't come to grips with this loneliness thing. I am asking myself which is the worst of the two evils. To be the one who departs, or to the one left alone? Where do we find hope again? Where, where, where???

Dear and Kim and friends, My broken heart goes out to all of you fellow broken hearted ones. Does that make sense?
Grief and depression go hand in hand as i am experiencing. Remiah described the two perfectly. I just started seeing a therapist for both afflictions. I need help and i cant seem to do it alone.

I watch a lot of tv and dread going to bed every night. I am so sad to be without my beloved. It is the worst experience of my life. I push on thru the days like a zombie as you also described. Hoping for better days ahead.