You know when you bang your elbow ('funny bone'), it bloody hurts like hell for a second or two, then it's gone. But if you just get a little thorn in you, or a splinter of metal maybe, it niggles away at you. My depression - possibly what some would call malaise in the past - is the latter. Suicidal ideation, for example, doesn't stop you working completely.

I've just got over a couple weeks of a viral infection (not Covid19 according to tests) and just felt yesterday -- oh wow, I actually feel happy. I've been intellectually 'happy' (by which I mean that on analysis there's nothing for me to be especially down about; at least something to take joy in) many times in the last few years (my depressive period) but very rarely have I felt physically in that state.

It's one thing to be alive, another to feel alive.