You’re Depressed, Dude

From the LA Times:

When symptoms [of depression] are properly recognized in men, major depression may be even more common in men than in women, according to a study published Wednesday by the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

The findings help unravel a mystery that has long puzzled mental health authorities: If men are so much less likely than women to be depressed, why are they four times more likely to commit suicide?

“When it comes to depression in men, to some extent we have blinders on,” said Dr. Andrew Leuchter, a psychiatrist who studies depression at UCLA. “We have not been asking about and taking into account a range of symptoms that may be gender-specific.”

 

Yep, according to SCIENCE, the long-held notion that women are 70% more likely to be depressed than men is just that: A notion. See, in the past, the only way to classify a depressed person was to find someone exhibiting “sadness, difficulty sleeping, feelings of guilt or worthlessness and loss of interest in pleasurable activities.” Now, psychiatrists also include feelings of aggression, alcoholism, and hyperactivity—guy shit—into qualifying depressed people, so more and more men are “making the cut,” so to speak. If you practice “risk-taking,” “substance abuse” and “rage,” bro, you might just have a medical condition.

When assessed using the “gender inclusive depression scale” that included widely recognized depressive symptoms such as sadness and hopelessness as well as symptoms commonly seen in men, 30.6% of men and 33.3% of women were found to have experienced a depressive episode at some point in their lives. In research terms, that gap between men and women was so narrow it may have been a statistical fluke.

And when the subjects were evaluated with the “male symptoms scale,” 26.3% of men and 21.9% of women were said to have experienced a major depressive episode in their lifetimes. That difference was large enough that it could not be due to chance, the researchers reported.

“Everything we think we know about depression is a reflection of how we defined it to begin with,” Leuchter said.

 

Congrats, dudes. You shouldn't be fined or imprisoned for throwing that road sign across the street. You should be hugged. You're “depressed!”

[H/T: Gawker]