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Comment by eatitraw | Hacker News Reader

1) How to know if you are depressed: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ao1aqb9vinfcwt2/Burns_De... (there are a number of other questionnaires, but I like this one)

2) How to deal with depression: book by Dr. David Burns "Feeling good" -- really good book, you should try applying methods of dealing with depression described in it. Available on kindle(but even if you don't have a device, you can read in your browser): http://amzn.com/B009UW5X4C

3) How to deal with depression if 2 doesn't quite worked out: find a good psychotherapist. I would recommend cognitive-behavioural therapy, but I may be biased, because I love Burns' books. Anyway, CBT or not, you should find a therapist if you struggle with depression.

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While likely a good start, I don’t know if this checklist (the dropbox link) is fully sensible – if I put a 4 in ‘Criticizing yourself or blaming others’, another 3 or 4 in ‘Loss of interest in sex’ and maybe a 2 in ‘Worrying about your health’, I am already labelled ‘unhappy’ or even ‘mildly depressed’, whereas all three are – IMHO – perfectly acceptable things to be found in any somewhat perfectionist, health-conscious person who finds entertainment in their work.

So you _actually_ can put 0s in all other questions and 4s in these two and 2 in another one? In my opinion, such a person would be either misinterpreting the questions, incorrectly stating(misjudging) answers, or actually having other signs of depression. There is a chance though that such a person may exist though.

Take "Worrying about your health", I think "worrying" here means "being anxious". So while normal health-conscious person cares about her/his health(eats well, sleeps well, takes necessary prescribed medications, etc), she/he isn't anxious about it. In contrast, depressed person may worry about her or his health without taking any actual steps to improve the situation.

Or take "Criticizing yourself or blaming yourself"(note second yourself, this question in kindle book is different, maybe I need to prepare correct pdf). If you spend your whole week under pressure of self-criticism, thinking about every mistake you made and every imperfection your work have, however small or large, then this is definitely 4. "Somewhat perfectionistic" is 1 in my book. 4 is "Extremely perfectionistic".

Or "Loss of interest in sex"? Why would an exteme loss of sex drive happen to a normal person?

My point is that it is very easy to misinterpret these questions and/or the scale 1-4. ‘Criticising yourself’ is to me an absolutely normal action, and this whole quantify-yourself-and-your-actions idea is basically about criticising and improving yourself.

Similarly for ‘worrying’ – does it mean ‘anxious’ or merely ‘concerned’? Taken to an extreme, I worry about my health when crossing the road. ‘Loss of interest in work or other activities’ also matches nearly everyone, given that people will lose interest in specific activities over time.

Certainly, such a questionnaire with a standardised interpretation and scale will be helpful, but you will need a professional to do such an assessment. To me, it looks as if it will over-diagnose people as unhappy/depressed.

Loss of sex drive is also something that can happen for a multitude of reasons – satisfaction found in work, for example, or other sources of stress.

I don't know about this questionnaire(and I don't have enough time to check right now), but similar ones are quite reliable tools for self-assessment. They are _designed_ to be used without presence of mental health professional, and they work. Most of your criticism is valid though, and scores may be distorted, but I am quite skeptical that this effects leads to many false positives.

Also, I am not saying that criticising yourself is not normal, I'm saying that spending all time criticising and blaming is not normal.

By the way, if your score actually more than 10, try other tools, Beck Depression Inventory for example. And try reading the book, you may find it useful even if you aren't clinically depressed. BTW, there is a chapter on perfectionism(which is quite common attitude in depressed individuals).

I am quite happy actually and somewhat busy with other work, so I’ll pass on the books, nevertheless thank you.

But I guess it is valid to ‘over-diagnose’ here, i.e. err on the side of caution, so it might even make sense to put in things that make sure anyone not absolutely fitting the standard ‘happy’ bill might be compelled to seek professional attention.

> So while normal health-conscious person cares about her/his health(eats well, sleeps well, takes necessary prescribed medications, etc), she/he isn't anxious about it.

That assumes that a normal health-conscious person is.. healthy already. If you're overweight, or a heavy smoker, or maybe you have something wrong with you from headaches to cancer, surely there are plenty of reasons to worry about your health without it being a sign of depression?

That anxiety causes depression though, which is the point. It might not be the OP's total life destroying depression, but it will definitely impact your overall happiness and wellbeing/feelings.

If you're fat, and that makes you concerned, you're self conscious about being fat, and it's almost definitely going to hit your self esteem, if not cause you to be upset with yourself about eating/etc.

It can cause depression, doesn't mean it has to cause depression. I'm worried about my health due to the fact that I'm not fit and I smoke a lot - but I'm not depressed about either of those two things.

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