Depressed
An experiment: in the absense of a clinical diagnosis, avoid the word “depressed” as a self-description. In its place, use words such as “unhappy” or “sad.”
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Aren’t people who use “depressed” when they mean “unhappy” or “sad” usually considered to be retards?
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
Perhaps by clinical assholes.
Comment by ben | August 23, 2009
I don’t think “clinical asshole” is in the current DSM, which suggests it is diagnostically impossible to be a “clinical asshole.”
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
Perhaps I meant “those who are clinical and assholes”.
Comment by ben | August 23, 2009
That was a weird response, Craig.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
But clinical what?
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
To respond more directly to Craig’s remark: I wouldn’t have written this post if I didn’t believe it was actually fairly common to use “depressed” where people of previous generations might have used “unhappy” or “sad.” In fact, I very rarely hear anyone use the word “sad” anymore as a self-description. I don’t think this is evidence of widespread mental disability, though.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
I agree with the point of Adam’s post: unless they’ve dealt with psychiatric illnesses first-hand, or have intimate second-hand knowledge of them, people should, in general, refrain from describing people as “psychotic” or “schizo” or “manic depressive” or just plain “depressed.” I was just under the impression that people who do this were considered uncouth in polite company.
To the best of my knowledge, the developmentally disabled are no longer called “retarded.” At least not in polite company. This suggests to me that it is now permissible to use the word as slang.
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
Craig, I can think of a number of counter-examples that invalidate your point about “retarded.”
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
Sadly, however, we are in polite company, so I cannot name those examples outright.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
I would also gently suggest that you may not have precisely hit upon the exact nature of my post’s point.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
But clinical what?
Are you yourself, perhaps, retarded? Have you never encountered “clinical” in the present context, as in, “your manner is cold, detached, and clinical”?
In any case, the realm of diagnostic possibility is much smaller than the realm of actual possibility.
Comment by ben | August 23, 2009
I wrote 12 before reading 8; I actually don’t think one should use “retarded” in the way I did. This I confess.
Comment by ben | August 23, 2009
That connotation of “clinical” did not occur to me.
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
As for retarded, a friend sent me an email the other day with the subject “retarded” and it contained a link to an article about Bryan Singer’s “Battlestar Galactica” movie. The friend in question is definitely more polite than I.
Comment by Craig | August 23, 2009
Well, that proves it!
Comment by ben | August 23, 2009
Anecdotal evidence is evidence, no?
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 23, 2009
MY anecdotal evidence suggests that you’d much easier get away with calling someone or something psychotic than retarded.
Comment by ben | August 24, 2009
fool is a nice word imo
Comment by read | August 24, 2009
I think ‘reTARD’ might come into play for a year or so.
Comment by Chad | August 24, 2009
8.2 is not correct. Using “retarded” is a bad habit and you should break it. I appreciate that this can be difficult, and not everyone wants to let it go. It’s a fun word to say and it has kick. But there are sacrifices worth making for inclusion and civility.
Comment by k-sky | August 24, 2009
I’m baffled by Craig’s apparent belief that people use “depressed” as a term of abuse.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 24, 2009
You would be baffled, you depressed idiot.
Comment by Hill | August 24, 2009
Depressed is just a word that means something is low or lowered; if your mood is low, then say depressed. Just because it has been taken over as a clinical term doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it when feeling unhappy or sad.
Comment by Adam | August 24, 2009
Maybe I’m not digging deep enough into my memory banks, but it seems like in my experience people who are just blue might describe themselves as depressed. But people who have been clinically diagnosed might describe themselves as “suffering from depression”.
I realize this was just suggested as an experiment, but it seems like if you’re talking to anybody who describes themselves as sad, unhappy or depressed your inevitable follow-up question about why they’re feeling that way would usually unearth whether we’re talking about the kind that leads to a prescription.
Comment by Matt in Toledo | August 24, 2009
Major unhappy disorder, thy name is MUD! Rofl
Comment by Currence | August 24, 2009
Okay, here’s what I was getting at: there are some situations where you should have negative feelings or else there is something wrong with you. Referring to it by the quasi-technical term “depressed” seems to me to subtly indicate that there is something wrong and correctable about said state — it’s, in some small way, a medicalization of normal human emotions.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 24, 2009
I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that “depressed” is a term of abuse. I did, however, say that it is misused to the extent that only those who are clinically depressed should be described as depressed. This seems quite compatible with your comment at 27 and the original post.
Comment by Craig | August 24, 2009
Diagnostic accuracy aside, even in its lay meaning “depressed” connotes a state of long-standing and persistent unhappiness while “unhappy” or “sad” connote a more transient state. Ergo, Adam is completely correct to suggest that the choice to describe oneself as “depressed” rather than “sad” is likely to have a meaningful effect.
Comment by Di Kotimy | August 28, 2009
Since we’re all very nice people and would never refer to an actually developmentally disabled person as “retarded” or as a “retard”, can’t we then in good conscience use “retarded” as a general synonym for “boneheaded”? If we’re allowed to call people “cretins” and “cretinous”, I think we can.
Comment by ed bowlinger | August 28, 2009
It seems to me that using a person’s condition as a term of abuse is an insult even if you don’t use it directly against that person.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 28, 2009
So we must also stop calling outcasts “lepers” and the unobservant “blind” or “near-sighted”. We should stop describing the puny as “anemic”.
Comment by ed bowlinger | August 28, 2009
You’re being both pedantic and wilfully obtuse. I guess we must be on a blog or something.
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 28, 2009
As someone who suffers from clinical, congenital pedantry, I’m deeply insulted.
Comment by ed bowlinger | August 28, 2009
That was a funny comment, but it might have been funnier if you’d protested that your obtuseness was congenital. Well, now that I type it, I’m not sure. What do you think?
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 28, 2009
I can’t help being an asshole, Kotsko, I was born this way.
Comment by ed bowlinger | August 29, 2009
So presumably it’s not an insult to you if I call people assholes, as long as I restrict the word “asshole” only to those not afflicted by the unfortunate condition of congenital assholery?
Comment by Adam Kotsko | August 30, 2009