Part Four

She was born into a life that gave her almost nothing, and she turned what was left into one of the most honest sounds America ever recorded.

Clinicians do not distinguish these conditions by asking whether you feel bad. They ask what kind of bad it is, when it happens, what it does to your body, and what it makes you do. Here is how that works in practice.

Before comparing anxiety and depression, it helps to be precise about what each one is. Neither is a single thing, and neither is a mood. They are patterns of symptoms that cluster together, persist over time, and interfere with a person's life.