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lululu comments on A heuristic for predicting minor depression in others and myself, and related things - Less Wrong Discussion
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We could come up with a more robust heuristic. I agree that this might lead to too many false positives. I think this method would be more useful if you used it to make multiple measurements over time and if we added more of what we know of the symptoms of depression. The difference between depressed and sad (well, the obvious outward difference) is that sad goes away and depression lingers.
It seems like it would be useful to create a checklist or inventory of outward symptoms so that a friend observing could keep track of your mood. Emotional blunting is one of the symptoms of depression so it is totally plausible that a friend keeping track would notice before you. Someone experiencing depression isn't motivated to keep track of their day-to-day mood fluxuations, so an outside observer can be very helpful in this respect. "Hey, I noticed that you've seemed down more often than not for the last couple weeks. Do you think you might have some mild depression starting up?"
Relatedly, there are now apps for phones which measure the speed at which bipolar people talk. Depressive and manic episodes can be picked up long before the symptoms become apparent to the bipolar person or the people around them. Depression causes people to act and talk slowly and lethargically, and to also be more reticent. This could be another possible and useful method to observe for depression. http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201405/listening-bipolar
Clinical guidelines for depression: Experiencing at least 5 of these symptoms and some of them almost every day for 2 weeks or longer
Observable traits a friend could spot (based on these clinical symptoms):
And if these symptoms are happening regularly over two weeks, its probably a good idea to talk to them about their feelings and the possibility of getting professional help
One issue I see here is two weeks i.e. that it is for people who are usually not depressed. I am trying to find out what if you are always depressed all your life. If you were never different. Especially if it is seen as perfectly normal in your family, relatives, and so on.
This is why I need to look into something different from the mainstream. The mainstream is looking into something temporary that is measured in weeks or months. I am looking into finding depressive personality especially in circumstances where that looks like normal. For example a depressive personality never usually enjoyed anything. He was told by parents to go to school, okay. He was told to get a job, okay. He feels life is duty, not fun. Whole subcultures can work this way. Just think of people who are simply poor. Parents who work 2 shifts in shitty jobs to put food on the table will raise kids like you must do X, Y, Z in life, never teach them how to enjoy things. So they engineer a depressive personality sometimes.
One strong confounder here is genes + culture.
To put it crudely, take an Italian to Finland and he'll diagnose 80% of Finns with depression. Take a Finn to Italy and he'll diagnose 80% of Italians with mania.
This is part of the reason I don't understand where the experts draw the line. You would think Canada and the UK are close enough culturally... I remember once a Canadian guy giving a sales demo to Brits and generally they they were annoyed how over-enthusiastic he was over it, and they considered it an American style getting imported into Canada... big full-toothed grins and all that. They were more or less thinking if you are happy about a product either you are stupid or think your audience is. Later on we discussed how best to sell things in the UK and an experienced entrepreneur told us smiles are okay but without showing teeth, as a 32-teeth grin would be too much enthusiasm.
There is no line, it's a continuous spectrum, and likely to be multidimensional, too :-/
tl;dr -- culture matters a lot.
Having lived that life, and not fully over it, it has its advantages, as well. I didn't really notice physical pain. Tragedy isn't meaningful. And there are some things that reach through depression; certain kinds of excitement, for example, and certain kinds of humor. And the nihilism which sometimes afflicts those prone to care seems laughable - life has no meaning, you complain? So what?
It's not miserable; it just -is-.
I've encountered three things that helped: LSD made me -realize- I was depressed, and would give me a few weeks without depression. 10,000 IUs of vitamin D turned ordinary days into good days. And St John's Wort, whose effect is extremely subtle and noticed more in its absence than its presence, made me care.
Vitamin D? Wow. You just swallowed all the pills in the morning at once and bang got high or how exactly should I imagine this? And was it D3 or a complex? How much was your body weight? This recommends 80 IU per body weight kg, so for 125kg people that would make it 10000.
D3. I take the pills in the morning. The effect is... interesting.
Thus far I've gotten two other depressed people to try D3. Their reactions, paraphrased for some amusement value:
Day 1: Huh. I've had a good day. X and Y and Z have gone right for me. Yeah, I started the vitamin D today, but I need an objective day to see whether or not it's actually responsible. Day 2: Wow. Two days in a row. This is making it difficult to assess how the vitamin D is working. Day 3: Wait... wait... is it really the vitamin D doing that? Can't be. X and Y and Z happened, that's why I had a good day. Day 4: OH GOD I'M A SACK OF CHEMICALS
Having been on vitamin D for about a year now - after a few months the effect stops being so dramatic; the first few weeks are ecstatic. You get adjusted to a new base level of whatever is going on, and your internal happiness levels compensate. Things are still overall better than they were before for me, though.
The other thing I've done which had a substantial effect on my overall sense of well-being was meditation. (I've also once been able to go directly into a lucid dream through meditating as I fell asleep. I forgot I could teleport in dreams, however, so I spent most of the night struggling to control my mind enough to make flight work reliably.)
ETA: On dosage, somebody - I think on Less Wrong, actually - mentioned a study about how 10,000 IUs was used, with some success, to treat depression. I tried that figure, without consulting body weight recommendations, and it worked. I'd guess, without strong medical basis, that depression isn't caused by a deficiency of vitamin D, but rather that at higher dosages vitamin D treats the symptoms of the underlying cause of depression.
Interesting. After reading your comment on Friday, now it is my third day on 5000 IUO, I did not really dare to try 10, so far not much of an effect. Probably masked by having visited a rural friend on Sunday who always has homemade brandy ready, well, I guess I won because he fell asleep and I didn't, still, there is hangover :)
You male? Heard about Vit D and testosterone being connected and T shots being used to treat male depression with some success. To test this: combine it with zinc, zinc deficiency is also fairly common and can be a T bottleneck.
On causality - I tend to look at these things differently. For example when they treat depression with exercise, it is more useful to look at it the opposite way: any natural animal would get a lot of exercise. Lacking it must cause some sort of a symptom, depression being in this case. And perhaps the same thing can be said about sunlight, the most natural thing for an animal is to run around in it, spending our lives in artificial caves must have some sort of an effect.
Hm. I'll try adding Zinc and see what effect that has, if any. I'd guess my zinc levels are pretty low, but I'll have to check my vitamins.