Here's just my two cents worth: Anytime there is a change in life, even if it's a good change, stress can accompany it, because of having to adjust to a new way of dealing with whatever comes your way. Often it causes depression - which is temporary, but it doesn't feel temporary when you are in it. I call it the "what now" feeling and caregivers get it too. When my son finished treatment, I felt at a loss because of the change - there was no longer the familiar routine of driving to treatment, having lots of doctors, nurses involved that we could depend on. It was a definite loss and stressful.

As for the rah-rah attitude, I have to agree with PaulB - it doesn't help to try to get someone to "cheer up" all at once. On a depression scale of 1-10, you cannot go from a 1 to a 10. It has to be done slowly and maybe point out some small encouraging progress. When my son was depressed, I would ask him where he was on the depression scale and if he said "4" I would ask him if he could work on making it to a 5 or a 6. If he said 4.5 that was progress.