Verbal Signs Someone Is Anxious or Depressed

The kind of words people use to express themselves can be affected by their condition of mental health, including anxiety and/or depression.

We are always trying to find ways to support our loved ones. However, to do this we need to know when they need that support.

Researchers have worked on understanding how to see early signs of anxiety and depression to help the public to know when their loved ones could be suffering with this and are in need of extra support.

This study in particular has found that people that are suffering with anxiety and/or depression have patterns in the kind of language they use on the daily basis.

167 individuals diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and in the midst of a depressive episode.

152 with neither mental illness.

106 with generalized anxiety disorder but without depression.

61 with depression but without generalized anxiety

Out of those who returned for further tests were:

184 who had anxiety or depression and, 55 that had neither.

Overall there were 486 participants; 65 percent female; 56 percent White; average age of 32 years old (range of 18 to 80 years).

To make the study reliable they used frequently tested measures to assess anxiety and depression in the participants, such as Anxiety and Related Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-5–Lifetime Version (ADIS-5L), and self-report Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (MASQ) for returning participants who self-reported their depression and anxiety.

Both assessments (clinician and self-reported) found features common in language of the participants who suffer with anxiety and/or depression.

When looking at depression and anxiety together, they both share language commonalities such as;

• More frequent use of process words (reading, give),
• Body words (hand, head, eating)
• Feel words (pain, feeling).

These were interpreted as existing due to the individuals being preoccupied with internal states such as feelings in the body and mind.

• Less work words, as in words like education, work and classrooms – which could be interpreted by having a lack of employment or less attention being given to external environment.
• More causation language (how, because, since) – which may mean they put more focus into the why behind events or emotions.
• More propositions, meaning words such as “like”, “as”. – This could mean they want to be more precise and get greater understanding.
• A lot of interrogatives used such as “when”, “how” – which could indicate they are intolerant of uncertainty and are always in search of information.
• Less frequent use of articles like “an”, “the”, and “a”. – this could also show a disinterest to the outside world.
• Very frequent use of common verbs like “has”, “knows”, and “is” – this can be interpreted as them having problems with distancing themselves from the situations they are in.
• Bigger overall word count – This isn’t specifically related to depression or anxiety  but more due to having more overall issues that could either be the cause of depression and anxiety or caused by them.

When looking at language patterns in depression and anxiety separately, they have found that anxiety was more associated with words on negative emotions such as, “worried”, “sick”, and “difficult”. On the other hand, depression was more associated with words about sadness and loneliness in particular, like “low”, “lost”, and “sorry”, and a lack of positive emotion words.

“I” usage is mostly associated with depression but is also associated with anxiety because it is related to negative emotions.