At what age do people first experience depression?

Relevant anecdotal data point: I was first diagnosed when I had my first suicidal thoughts at 12.

Does anyone know what depression is?

You don't take a blood test or get a brain scan or anything like that.

Instead, you do this: https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/educat...

> These patient assessment measures were developed to be administered at the initial patient interview and to monitor treatment progress, thus serving to advance the use of initial symptomatic status and patient reported outcome (PRO) information, as well as the use of “anchored” severity assessment instruments. Instructions, scoring information, and interpretation guidelines are included.

From that page, here's how you measure how severe your depression is: https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Prac...

These are the "guidelines" in the article.

> Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much

Am I having trouble staying asleep because my alarm is going off? How much sleep is "too much"?

> Feeling bad about yourself—or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down

What about people that have let themselves and family down? Is that not valid?

> Poor appetite or overeating

Relative to what? I'm not being fed per gram with a feed chart. I have no idea how I'd answer this.

> Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way

This one's a trick question, because I think it's "nearly every day" for most people for at least a brief second per day? But say that and you might get shipped off to in-patient, so I know the answer is "never".

According to this thing, I probably have severe depression. I don't think I'm depressed though? There's no way to tell.

A better way to look at it might be that anyone who talks to a mental health professional has a good likelihood of leaving with a depression diagnosis, an SSRI prescription, and a follow up appointment.

My depression started in middle school so article is wrong on a fair amount of points

I had it extremely young, like age 5. Really disturbed my parents, talking about how I wish I'd never been born. LOL. They never thought to get me help, so that's what you get.

But actually I'm thankful I didn't go through the diagnosis-mill back then, because later in life I sought answers from a GP and was simply diagnosed with depression, had SSRI's thrown at me and developed a mild psychotic episode (full blown manic episode in which I thought I could make a free energy device knowing nothing about electronics), which of course I didn't see a doctor about, because you can't actually tell when you're having a psychotic episode, especially if you go all the way to black-out word salad mode.

Many years later finally properly diagnosed with Bipolar 2 (explains full mania on SSRIs as opposed to hypo mania/mixed episode I normally get). Glad I didn't have to go through that shit when I was younger. GPs are so arrogant you have to literally stop them in their tracks and say NO, I WANT TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST PLEASE (and silently to yourself 'AND I SURE AS HELL DON'T WANT any more of your free anti-depressant sample packs you bleepety bleep').

If I had so many problems figuring out what was relevant to tell someone to help them diagnose me, what is normal and what is not, when I was in my 20s, I really doubt a child would do any better without really extreme and obvious psychotic episodes, etc, that aren't simply delusional.