#1. How do you know if you’re depressed?

How the sweet fuck are we meant to figure out if we’re:

• a regular amount of sad,

• being dramatic, or

• actually depressed?

Essentially, theres a big ol’ list of symptoms.

If you have enough of them, for long enough, then congratulations - you “meet the criteria” for …..

Major Depressive Disorder, otherwise known as:

• Clinical Depression

• Depression

• The Big Sad (which is what I call it when I want it to sound less dire)

Where are the symptoms listed?

The fancy document that holds all these symptoms is nicknamed the DSM -5.

It’s full name is The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and it’s the 5th edition of it that.

Your doctor, psychologist or psyciatrist (don’t worry, we’ll cover what the difference is later), will talk with you, and figure out where you sit.

Just remember, it’s only what you’re feeling at the moment, at this point in time. It’s not permanent, and will change. You won’t have these symptoms forever.

What are the symptoms?

We’ll go through them in the next one.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much info at once.

Just scroll to the next one like a carousel on insta.

I’m proud of you for staying alive,

talk again soon,

love bren

xx