Do you think it is necessary to actually ''give in'' to ones depression? Not as in suicide...?

But in the sense, allowing yourself to feel like that? Even if it means you are incapacitated from work like a proper illness of some kind. I notice when I am depressed and try to live a ''normal'' life with it sometimes, my symptoms are exacerbated. Doing the same routine everyday, for some reason, pushes me to the brink. I end up suicidal or I start having violent thoughts and find it hard to cope. This is when I try to brush my feelings under the carpet that is and be ''normal''. When I get like that, It really scares me and it seems alien to my mind. I am gentle, I am ethical. I think of moral issues all the time. Kindness is the most important to me. When I get like that, I realise this is a proper illness. This is just as debilitating as any kind of more respectable illness in society. I am a First Cl Hons. Graduate. I have two degrees and getting a third. I am not a lazy, ambitionless layabout. But I realise this is a real thing. And there are times I cannot work because of it. But the world does not always recognise it. Taking unemployment and going on the dole seems shameful but I almost feel like I live with this illness, since I was a child, and it might be what I have to do. Opinions?