Depression Test

Answer all 15 questions the way things have actually been for you recently, not how you’d like them to be. It takes about 4 minutes, and at the end you’ll get a plain reading of how often signs of depression have been showing up in your day-to-day life lately.

This test is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for a professional diagnosis. Consult a qualified professional for medical or psychological advice.

When something genuinely good happens on an ordinary day, how much does your overall mood actually lift because of it? A friend calls with good news out of nowhere, and the rest of the afternoon runs on that lift without any effort to keep it going. Once in a while, a genuinely good piece of news still leaves the day feeling flat underneath, though you can usually point to why. A weekend trip you'd been looking forward to comes and goes, and by Sunday night the heaviness that sat there Friday morning hasn't actually moved. Good news is showing up plenty these days, and it's doing surprisingly little to change how the rest of the day actually feels. Even a long-planned birthday dinner comes and goes without the heaviness underneath the day lifting for more than a few minutes.

When you do something that used to reliably feel good, how much of that reaction is still there while you're actually doing it? Putting on a favorite record still catches you humming along before the first chorus is even over. Every so often a meal you'd normally look forward to comes and goes without quite the lift you expected, though you can't always say why. Halfway through the show you used to binge in one sitting, you notice you haven't laughed once, and you just keep watching. A hobby you used to lose hours in now gets maybe twenty minutes of real interest before it turns into background noise, most times you pick it up. Almost nothing that used to land - a good song, a favorite meal, a familiar joke - actually lands anymore while it's happening.

After a worry or a low moment settles in, how often does thinking about it actually lead you toward a next step? The same worry from Tuesday is still circling on Friday, no closer to a decision than it was the first night. Once in a while a worry gets replayed for days past the point where there's anything new left to learn from it. You tell yourself you've thought it through enough for one night, and then you're back on the same thought twenty minutes later, unconvinced by your own decision to stop. A concern usually gets turned over a couple of times before it points you toward what to actually do about it. By the second time it comes up, you've already decided what you're doing about it and stopped circling the story itself.

Compared with how you normally sleep, how much is your sleep actually departing from that lately - too little, too much, or just not refreshing? Most nights land close to the same stretch of sleep, and you wake up feeling like sleep actually did its job. One weekend you're up two hours earlier than planned for no reason at all - an odd exception, not a new pattern. Three nights this week you were still awake well past midnight, and the fourth you slept clear through an alarm that used to work fine. Eight hours of sleep most nights still leaves you waking up as tired as when you went to bed. Sleep doesn't look like anything you'd call normal anymore - four hours some nights, twelve on others, and morning never feels like a fresh start either way.

How long are small everyday tasks - a message, a bill, an errand - sitting before you actually deal with them? A text sits unanswered for maybe an hour before you get back to it, same as it always has. A form or an email occasionally sits for a couple of extra days before it gets handled, longer than it used to. "I'll do it tonight," you say about the same three errands for the fourth night running - and then don't. A handful of small things - laundry, a reply, a call back - are usually stacked up waiting by the time you get to any of them. Small tasks don't really get handled anymore so much as accumulate, until something forces the pile down all at once.

Walking into a new or uncertain situation, what's your default read on how it's going to go before you actually know? An unfamiliar meeting gets approached expecting it'll probably go fine, same as most things do. A situation that's genuinely more uncertain than most can get met with a "this probably won't go well" - though that's the exception. You've already drafted the apology text in your head for a conversation that hasn't started, and might not need one at all. Most new or uncertain situations lately get written off as probably-bad before there's a shred of actual evidence to go on. Practically anything still undecided gets treated as bad news waiting to happen, before a single fact is in.

Before doing something you planned because you expected to enjoy it, how well does that advance expectation usually hold up once you're actually in it? You expect the dinner with old friends to be a chore to get through, and by dessert you're glad you went - same as basically every time lately. A trip written off in advance as "probably not worth it" can still turn out to be the best part of the week, now and then. You tell a friend beforehand that the concert probably isn't worth the ticket price, and by the encore you're already looking up when the band's playing again. What you expect going in about an activity is reasonably close to how it turns out, more often than not lately. Planned activities almost always turn out about as worthwhile as you expected before starting them - no real gap between the two.

When a low mood starts and something genuinely distracting is right there, how much does the distraction actually pull your attention away from it? A good movie still pulls you all the way out of a bad mood within the first ten minutes, most times you try it. A call from a friend can fail to shake off a mood, every so often, on a day it's dug in harder than most. You start the podcast that always pulls you out of it, and twenty minutes in you realize you haven't actually absorbed a word of it. A distraction that used to work reliably now holds attention for a few minutes before the low mood is back in the foreground. A low mood, once it starts, tends to hold on regardless of whatever's put in front of it to compete.

How closely does your energy through the day actually track with how much rest you got the night before? A full night's sleep shows up the next day as an actual full night's sleep - the energy matches the hours. A well-rested morning can still carry a tiredness that doesn't quite add up, on certain days. You slept a solid eight hours and tell a coworker you feel fine - and by 2pm you're the one asking how it's already this late in the day. Even after a decent night's sleep, the tiredness by afternoon rarely lines up with how much rest was actually gotten. By 10am most days, the heaviness is already back - it doesn't much matter anymore how many hours of sleep came before it.

When a low-effort social plan comes up - a quick coffee, a call, dropping by a friend's - how often do you actually follow through on it the way you normally would? A coffee with a friend who lives two streets over gets rescheduled three times running, and each time it feels like the right call in the moment. A recognizable share of the easy, normally-welcome plans - a quick call, a short visit - get quietly moved to "another time" instead of happening. Two of this month's low-key plans with friends actually happened; the other three got a text saying something came up. A low-effort plan like this usually still happens about when it was supposed to, occasional last-minute change aside. A friend's easy invitation - coffee, a quick visit - still gets said yes to nearly every time it comes up.

After something goes wrong, how much does it end up feeling like it says something about you personally, rather than just being the one thing that happened? A missed deadline gets a quick fix and an apology email, and that's the end of it - no follow-up story attached. Forgetting one important date can leave you turning it over as if it revealed something bigger about who you are, on the harder weeks. "Of course I messed that up," you mutter after dropping a dish - and spend the rest of the evening only half-present. A setback these days tends to default to feeling like proof of some deeper flaw, rather than staying about the one thing that happened. By the third small thing that goes wrong this week, you're no longer reacting to the thing itself - just adding it to the same old case file against yourself.

For something you used to start doing for fun without thinking twice, how much more prompting does it take to actually begin now? Picking up the novel you're mid-way through still happens the same way it always did - no build-up required. Grabbing your running shoes still happens most evenings, though every so often it takes talking yourself into it first. The paints have been sitting out on the table for four days now, ready to go, still untouched. A hobby that used to start itself now typically waits on a deliberate decision first - and making that decision takes real effort, most days. Picking up anything that used to be pure impulse - a sketchbook, a run, a favorite playlist - now needs someone else to suggest it first, virtually every time.

When you're thinking through a low mood, how much of that thinking is spent on "why do I feel this way" versus what to actually do about it? A rough morning gets one quick thought - what would actually help right now - and then you're already doing it. Some mornings the question "what's going on with me" gets a few extra minutes before you get around to doing anything about it. An entire commute gets spent turning over why the morning felt off, and not one minute of it goes toward what to do differently at work. The time spent turning over a low mood goes mostly into working out why it's there, rarely into what to do about it. Every time a bad mood shows up, the entire mental conversation is about tracing it back to a cause - never once about what to actually do next.

How close does your eating - amount, timing, appetite - stay to what's normal for you lately? Lunch gets skipped more days than not lately, and dinner ends up covering for it, whatever amount that turns out to be. A plate gets pushed away half-finished on a bad day now and then, appetite just not there the way it usually is. You made a full plate out of habit on Tuesday and left half of it; by Thursday you'd gone back for seconds without noticing you had. Eating stays close to its usual rhythm on the majority of days, with just the occasional exception. Meals still land at roughly the amount and time they always have, day after day.

Following something simple - a short message, an easy conversation - how much actual effort does that take you these days? A short text from a friend still gets read and answered without a second thought. A two-line email sits open sometimes, re-read a second time before the meaning actually clicks. You nod along through a coworker's two-minute update and realize, right as they finish, that you'll have to ask them to repeat half of it. A quick voice message from your sister now needs replaying twice before you catch all of it, more days than not. A single sentence in a group chat needs rereading twice before it actually registers, same as pretty much everything else this small.

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The classic 16-type personality test rooted in Jung's typology has been rebuilt from the ground up: a new CoreTypes methodology, and a far higher level of accuracy. These might be the most useful ten minutes you'll ever spend on yourself: you walk away with the key to your decisions, your relationships and your results — and it's yours for good.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Am I depressed?

This test can't answer that question directly - what it can honestly tell you is how often and how strongly a set of well-documented everyday depression signs have been showing up for you over the period it covers. That's a useful starting point, not a yes-or-no verdict.

Can this test tell me if I have depression?

No. A test like this is a starting point, not a diagnosis. Only a doctor or a mental health professional can actually diagnose depression, and they do it through conversation and a look at your history - not through a single questionnaire, online or otherwise. If any part of your result feels worth exploring, that conversation is the next step.

How accurate are depression tests and questionnaires?

A self-report tool like this one describes a snapshot of documented everyday experiences over a recent period - it's honest about what it covers, but it isn't a substitute for the accuracy a full clinical evaluation provides, which draws on far more than answers to a set of questions.

What's the difference between depression screening and diagnosis?

Screening is an early step toward a possible evaluation, not the same thing as a diagnosis - they're two distinct phases, with screening coming first. This test sits even a step earlier than a formal screening: it's a personal reading, not a clinical tool of any kind.

Can depression and anxiety happen together?

Yes - the two commonly show up together, even though they're separable experiences with their own distinct patterns. This test measures depression signs specifically, not anxiety, so a result here speaks only to that one side of the picture.

Methodology

This test takes a self-report approach: it asks about the frequency and intensity of five well-documented everyday facets of depressive experience - persistent low mood and a negative view of yourself and what's ahead, anhedonia (both in the moment and in what you expect from things beforehand), rumination, self-reported physical symptoms, and withdrawal from effort and connection. It's based on the general approach used in psychological research on depression, not built to replicate any one clinical instrument.

What it measures is how strongly and how often these five facets have been showing up for you recently - a self-report snapshot of a recent period, not a validated clinical screen and not a diagnosis.

This test is built for the general adult population. It isn't designed for teenagers, whose depression tends to center on a different dominant symptom than the ones covered here, or for the postpartum period, which is its own distinct, differently-timed experience with its own dedicated tools. It also doesn't measure anxiety, even though the two commonly occur together - depression and anxiety are separable experiences, and a single combined score couldn't honestly describe both.

This is not a diagnostic instrument, and it doesn't replace a conversation with a doctor or a mental health professional. If you want to read more, the NHS's overview of depression symptoms in adults covers the everyday picture in more depth, and its page on getting a diagnosis explains who makes that call and how to start.

References

Beck, A. T. (1967/1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., Weber, K., Assenheimer, J. S., Strauss, M. E., & McCormick, R. A. (1995). Testing a tripartite model: II. Exploring the symptom structure of anxiety and depression in student, adult, and patient samples. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104(1), 15–25.

Author: Lex Tarrel, Personality Typologist Reviewed by: Igor Lyadskiy, PhD