Do we need more words for depression?

[building2016]

My friend wrote a brilliant article about her own experiences of depression.

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/8958228

She thinks the term depression is too broad to be useful. I agree...people's experience are just so different. A numb sort of depression is not the same as a crushing despair.

Agree...
I am having a bit of a patch at the moment. Slightly numb, not full of my manic excuberance... (and missing it!).. But I am not full blown man in a dressing gown.

It would be good to have a description that everyone can understand. I would not like a numeric scale... that feels to impersonal.

Melissa Broder summed it up on twitter:

" what idiot called it 'depression' and not 'there r bats living in my chest and they take up a lot of room p.s. i always see a shadow' "

That's brilliant, Jotta

Prof I agree a numerical scale would be useless. You want a sort of spider diagram to locate yourself onand you might be loads of places on it.

No answers, just seems like it is wrong to call it all one thing.

I'm diagnosed with severe depression - the type that means I'm suicidal, self harming, can't get out of bed, wash, leave my housework neglected and barely eat for days because I can't get out to the shops. I haven't worked for over a decade, I get enhanced rate PIP, am in the support group of ESA, have been fully funded for NHS psychotherapy and have a care plan from social services.

It does annoy me when people describe their experiences of relatively mild depression and they are really quite functional, yet their expectations of me and others like me are that I should be just as functional because our conditions have the same name. Or complaining that they've been turned down for various benefits or types of support which are reserved for those who are most severely affected. So yes, I'd want to have a distinction between the different types, people get the wrong impression with an umbrella term and it really undermines the level of need required in severe cases.