diagnosis

yesterday my therapy group was discussing the BDI. the BDI is the beck depression inventory, which is a multiple-choice questionnaire that you fill out which is meant to show how severe your depression is. it has questions about things like how much you've been sleeping, whether or not you feel hopeful, and how often you feel sad. i don't like this test.

some of the questions offer choice options that don't seem to be about the same thing. let me give an example. there's a question on the test about self-hatred. there's a choice that says something like, "i dislike myself," and another that says something like, "i have lost all confidence in myself." you can only choose one. these are really different things, though. i like myself just fine most of the time but i still find myself hopelessly incompetent. i don't view that as self-hatred. meanwhile another girl in the group is very outspoken and confident, but she doesn't especially like herself.

here's another thing. the questionnaire asks you to compare how you feel now to how you used to feel. some questions have options like, "i make decisions about as well as ever." this is fine for people who used to be normal but developed their depression recently, but i've been depressed since i was, like, 8. there was never a time when i made decisions easily, didn't cry a lot, looked forward to my future, or had a lot of energy. so when i take the test, it seems that i'm much happier than i really am, when the truth is that i'm just not worse. that's important, but it's not the whole story.

i don't know. i think these tests have their place. it's useful for me to be able to look at my previous scores and see that i really am getting better, because sometimes that's hard to see objectively. but really i think the only way to figure out how people are doing is to just talk to them and listen really carefully. there aren't any shortcuts.