Does Depression Have Triggers?

I've never been diagnosed with depression, and if I have it, it's a very mild case, so for most of my life it just wasn't a serious enough issue to get checked, but my dad has depression, and have sometimes wondered if certain thoughts I have are due to a mild depression.

However, I recently moved for the year across the world (I did it safely, don't worry), and I feel like one of my roommates triggers my depression, since he only talks about covid. I'm normally fine, have enough to distract me when I'm not talking to him, but I do feel depressed when I talk to him. I would never consider self-harm, but there's a Jewish idea (I'm Jewish) that has been feeling more and more resonant lately: "It's better to not have been born than to have been born, but now that one has been born, they should praise God" (cf. Eccl. 4:3). Between climate change, Trump (I'm relatively left wing), covid, and all the other shit in the world right now, yeah, I often feel like it would have been better if I didn't exist. Now that I do exist, **I value my life greatly**, but there's a part of me that feels like it would've been easier had I not existed to begin with, if that makes any sense.

So, I guess my question is really, is this depression, or is it a normal, temporary, feeling of upset at the state of the world when I talk to my roommate? How ever-present is depression; is it something that's around all the time, or can specific people or things trigger it?

I know I should probably speak to a therapist or do something to diagnose it, but I'm in a foreign country for the year, and with covid, that makes everything even harder. So if there's any type of self-diagnosis (even if inaccurate or unofficial) that can help me figure out how serious this is? The other issue is that it's hard to be honest and I sort of know the 'right' answers to the questions to get out of being diagnosed with depression.

Sorry if this isn't the right place for this type of post, but it would be helpful if you could direct me to a better subreddit for this kind of post.