Take this quiz and find out!
Are you tired of sitting there in the dark, wondering whether you're really depressed, or just filled with normal teenage angst? Are you wearing out your The Cure CDs by playing them ten times a day? Do you sit and think to yourself, Am I depressed like Kurt Cobain, or just whiny like Alanis Morissette? No more confusion! No more wondering! And best of all, no more need for troublesome, difficult introspection! This handy guide will answer all your questions!
For each of the following choices, pick the one that is closest to describing you.
- My bedroom, dorm room, or domicile is:
- Decorated in black, with lots of candles.
- Smelly from the half-eaten sandwiches and dirty laundry that I can't motivate myself to deal with.
- I'm wearing:
- Matching shades of black, so I can show the world how disaffected I am!
- The same sweatpants I slept in, wore yesterday, and slept in the night before.
- The phone rings, and I suspect it's my friend. I:
- Answer it, and explain at length how depressed I am, and how much I'm suffering.
- Don't even bother to turn over. I'm not about to walk all the way across the room.
- I typically eat:
- Very little, because I'm all depressed and skinny!
- Microwave popcorn, potato chips, maybe Count Chocula if I'm feeling really ambitious.
- My job:
- Pisses me off, because I don't like having to obey the man!
- Fired me last week because I couldn't motivate myself to go for a week and a half.
- I usually:
- Carry around notebooks, into which I put all my profound thoughts and depressing goth poetry! Being depressed makes me so creative!
- Sleep, and watch daytime TV.
- The last store I went to is:
- Hot Topic, where I bought this neat dog collar and some black hair dye.
- 7-11, where I bought some ice cream and chips.
- My depression makes me sharply aware of:
- How unjust the world is, and how much evil there is, and how awful existence is!
- Nothing. I can barely focus enough to follow the plot of this TV show.
- In the mornings I:
- Get up, shower, get dressed, and leave for school or work.
- Sleep as long as I can, and then tell myself I'll go to class tomorrow for sure.
- I often think about:
- How depressed I am.
- Absolutely nothing.
- Deep down, I'm:
- So full of pain, and I wish this dark cloud would leave, but not really, because I like frowning and listening to angry music.
- Absolutely nothing.
- Depression:
- Lets me know that I'm alive.
- Makes me wonder if I'm alive.
There is no good depression. It's not sexy. It's not fun. It's not the new rock and roll. If you like how you feel, and you want to stay that way, you're not depressed. If you're creative, and writing a lot of poetry about how depressed you are, you're not depressed. If you have the energy and motivation to maintain what we assume are the trappings of depression (dark clothes, dark demeanor, and so forth) you're not depressed! Get the idea? No one likes to be depressed. If you sit around explaining to us how depression shows you how alive you are, and how much depth there is to you, then you're just a whiny teenager (I hope you're still a teenager) and you don't know what it's like to really suffer.
People who are really depressed don't like it. They don't write about it. They don't talk about it. They don't do much of anything. Depression saps your ability to do even the easiest things. It makes it impossible to maintain your life, or do the things you want to do. It makes you feel dead. It's not about The Fall of the House of Usher and death metal. It's not sexy or fun, and if you think it is, you're confused about what constitutes depression.