Check the statistics and you'll find many more women suffering depression than men. According to beyondblue, the "black dog' haunts one in four women compared to one in six men.
Is this the case? And why? Are women more "emotional' and more likely to suffer depression?
Dr Suzanne Brownhill suggests in her recent doctoral thesis that the gender gap actually narrows when men's behaviour is taken into account: men have much higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, violence and suicide.
Even though men report depression less, she says, there is an inextricable link between what men "feel' and what they "do'.
The reality is that there are plenty of men suffering depression"”not just the normal ups and downs of life, that is, but prolonged, devastating periods of melancholy"”perhaps just as many as women, but it can often be hidden.
What follows are the stories of four Christian men struggling with depression: Joel Wallman, David Nolan, Martin Holland and James Fong. Each man has his own story: from the causes"”which are never straightforward"”to diagnosis and to their daily lives, but each is certain that God is greater than their deepest darkness.
Joel Wallman, 20, studies science at the University of Sydney.
The main thing you feel is flat.
You've got no energy, it's very hard to do things. You force yourself to do things, but it's hard to see the point. Everything becomes a bit pale.
I came down with a bad and constant headache back in 2002. Completely incapacitated me. I spent a long time at home by myself, and dipped sharply into depression.
In the end, I was hospitalised for the depression, not the headache.
In the worst parts of the depression, the only thing I really wanted was to die. I would get quite frustrated with God that I was still alive. I just didn't want to go on.
I knew God was real, but at those points I didn't like him that much.
I don't understand depression that well" and I've gone through it for five years! Sometimes you avoid people because you want the space, but sometimes people want nothing more than to have someone come over and talk to them.
It's a devastating illness, it really rocks people. People who appear to be so strong can be shattered by depression.
David Nolan, 18, studies computer science at the University of Sydney.
Depression just takes part of you away.
It takes away your enjoyment of anything, takes away a little bit of your emotions as well.
There'd even be times when I'd try to make myself unhappy: there would be actions I'd take, or things that I'd say specifically to make other people angry.
You can have depression and not even really know it: you just think life is worthless.
There were a couple of times last year where I was acting really negative, and a couple of my school friends said that maybe I should go to a psych.
I didn't, but in the end a friend of mine gave me copy of the notes a psych had given her. It said stuff about positive reinforcement, to write down what you're unhappy about and went through steps to solving your problems.
It's hard to understand for plenty of people: once a mate of mine was feeling suicidal, and I asked my mum if I could go over to his place. She just kind of scoffed at it.
I didn't push it, but I was concerned for that person, but she didn't understand that it was real, that he wasn't just making it up.
Martin Holland, 26, is in his first year at Moore College.
My depression's a bit of an enigma: it's not something that you can grab a hold of.
I don't really know what it is, in a sense. It's mainly been other people's observations, them saying that it just doesn't seem normal.
"It's not what you're usually like,' they say. I didn't diagnose myself.
The doctor said it was "stress-induced anxiety/depression." I notice the anxiety side of it more: the pressure of things, worrying about what's coming up, thinking it's all too much.
It's not like I don't laugh as well: I've always loved comedy and stand-up comedians, and I find joy in lots of things. It's just hard to get past those immediate stresses.
It's worth struggling through because we know God's great plans for us, my wife and I, even though we don't know what they are.
As you keep reading the Bible at college you keep hearing these promises. I was reading something yesterday in Romans, asking "if we are faithless, does that mean that God will be faithless?'
Paul says, "on the contrary, God will be more than faithful.'
Sometimes it's the difference between knowing the promises in my head and living them.
James Fong, 32, has struggled with depression for over twenty years.
Depression is like emotional bronchitis. You just find it difficult to breathe. Antidepressants function as a bit of a Ventolin to help you breathe more easily, but you still have to do the hard work.
I'd been struggling with depression since my father's death when I was nine, but when my 14-year-old niece died during my first year at Bible College, I spiralled badly.
I was paranoid and emotionally volatile, thinking negatively, and sabotaging myself and everyone around me.
I failed college that year, and in the end, my sister, a doctor, said that if I didn't see a psychiatrist, she'd hospitalise me.
The big turning point for me was acknowledging that God is bigger than my greatest darkness.
I realised that even if things were really black, if I was incapacitated from serving in ministry, or even if I lost my mind, none of that could separate me from God's love.
It's part of God's process of change. He's teaching you patience, emotional self-control, joy in the face of grief, and he's teaching you to trust him no matter what happens.
At college other depressives and I would ask each other how we were on the "psalmometric' scale: do feel like a Psalm 42 (that's pretty bad), a 73 (bitter and cynical), or, in good times, a 150 (praise the Lord the whole way)?
An 88 was rock bottom, because there is just no hope in that Psalm.
Thankfulness is the last thing on the mind of a depressive, but it's the very first thing we need to do to reverse the effects.
There are practical things you can do: eat well, rest, say the exact opposite of the negative thoughts in your head " even when you don't believe it " but often you just need to stop for a minute and work out what you can be thankful to God for, just bit by bit.
I've realised that my own struggle has helped me to be empathetic with those who are going through a hard time.
Walking along that desperately lonely path of destruction means that I can help other people feel less lonely.
We build walls of pride around ourselves, and in the end I've found that my brokenness is a great gift: it's an opportunity to allow God's grace to seep through.
Read Suzanne Brownhill's article The Big Build: Hidden depression in men, or find her full thesis online at UNSW Library.
*Not his real name.
