What it is
Situational depression is a low mood that comes in response to a specific stressful event. It isn’t a formal diagnosis on its own; clinicians may call it adjustment disorder with depressed mood, or reactive depression. It usually starts within three months of the event, and it often lifts within days or weeks once the stress ends or time passes.
That it’s tied to a situation doesn’t make it small. It means the situation is part of the treatment.
How it shows up for me
My therapist used this term after a summer with my daughter ended and she went back to her mom’s for the school year. It helped me to know it had a name and an edge, that it was a response and not a sentence.