If you think you have depression, you should visit your GP. Your GP may give you a physical examination and do some blood or urine tests to rule out other conditions that have similar symptoms, such as under-active thyroid.
There are no clinical tests for depression, so detailed interviews and questionnaires are usually used to make a diagnosis.
There are many different questionnaires used to measure depression. However, two classifications of mental illness are most widely used:
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is a classification system based on all the known recorded symptoms associated with a particular mental condition. Your GP will ask you if you have certain symptoms, and depending on your answers, will be able to use the system to identify what the condition is.
- International Classification of Diseases. This is a similar system of classifications, again based on the known symptoms associated with particular diseases. Developed by the World Health Organization, it is a much wider system, covering all diseases (not just mental health). Your GP will ask you about your symptoms in order to classify your condition.
Using one of these two guidelines, it is usually possible for your GP to diagnose depression, decide which type of depression you are experiencing, and to rule out other mental conditions.
Any discussion that you have with your GP about your depression will be treated in the strictest of confidence. Your GP will only ever break this rule if there is a significant risk of harm to either yourself or to others, and if informing a family member or carer would reduce that risk.
Is it my fault that I have become depressed?
It is definitely not your fault. It may be difficult to avoid it, but there are certainly things you can learn to do to recognise depression early so you can avoid becoming more severely ill.
If you have had depression before, this would involve learning how to recognise your early warning signs. Everyone has their own particular early warning signs, such as not sleeping properly, starting to brood about things, or spending all your time working and not enjoying yourself.
You learn that when you have these early warning signs, you have to reflect on your lifestyle and make changes where necessary.
Can I continue working?
If your depression is caused by overwork, or is affecting your ability to do your job, you may need a little time off to recover. However, there is evidence that taking prolonged time off work can make depression worse. The Department for Work and Pensions found that if you take more than a year off work for a mental health problem, you stand a greater chance of dying than of ever going back to work. In fact, there is quite a lot of evidence that going back to work can help you recover from depression.
