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I think we’re talking past each other here? The medical diagnoses are generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder (with a variety of variations)
by kkielhofner 4y ago
I think we’re talking past each other here?
The medical diagnoses are generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder (with a variety of variations). Both of which, in common usage, have meaning.
The average person with their arm in a cast doesn’t say they “have a compound fracture of the radius and ulna”. They say they broke their arm or MAYBE fractured their arm. In this case the simple language and medical diagnosis is fracture.
Just like people with SERIOUS, life ruining disabling and debilitating depression don’t say they “have non-psychotic major depressive disorder”. They say they have depression. I’m not gatekeeping, just being extreme for the purposes of discussion.
To me, you can be depressed about something and not have depression. You can be anxious about something and not have anxiety. Those are slightly more sophisticated uses of sad and worry.
To me (again) the issue comes in when you apply a diagnosis to a feeling. When you bump your funny bone you don’t tell people your arm is fractured.
- Apocryphon 4y ago> To me, you can be depressed about something and not have depression. You can be anxious about something and not have anxiety. Those are slightly more sophisticated uses of sad and worry. You are contradicting your own examples: > You’re not sad, you’re depressed. You don’t worry, you have anxiety. It's possible the people are expressing they are feeling depressed or having anxiety in a colloquial way without confusing the emotion for the diagnosis. Your prior examples indicated that to use those words is problematic, yet you now say that "you can be depressed about something" and that "you can be anxious about something."
- kkielhofner 4y agoYou missed the sarcasm/jest on my first examples. I should have tagged them or been clearer. On the later the separation is: “I’m depressed” = Sad or a variation of it. “I have depression” = Diagnosis of a disorder
- Apocryphon 4y agoI really don’t believe people are casually using self-diagnosing language over using the variation that simply indicates their mood. Perhaps feeling depressed or anxious are more intense versions of feeling sad or worried, as they indicate persistence of negative feeling. But given all that has happened over the last couple of years, it is arguable that society as a whole is more susceptible to intense feelings.
- DonHopkins 4y agoI've always wondered what it means that Germans say "I have hunger" instead of "I'm hungry". Maybe they think hunger is a disorder to be cured by prescribing food, instead of a feeling to be satisfied by eating. ;)
- shever73 4y agoFrench is the same: j’ai faim, and Italian is too: ho fame. Both mean “I have hunger”. I wonder if English is in the minority of languages that use “I am” instead of “I have”? Interestingly, German doesn’t use the same construction for thirst. Ich bin durstig.
- Retric 4y agoI think you have been reading to much into this. Less formal language get’s odd when you take it literally. People casually describe emotions in a silly number of ways. Sometimes it’s possessive like “I got (hungry, depressed)” Other times it’s a state like “I am (hungry, depressed).” Sometimes it’s a transformation “That makes me so (hungry, depressed, happy, angry).” etc Most people aren’t suggesting a medical diagnosis any more than “I have a crush” suggests you physically caught someone. Also, “I broke my arm” doesn’t always imply someone broke a bone. Ex-pitchers for example sometimes use the phase to refer to a lack of functionality, though busted is more general.