If your handwriting always travels downhill, it could be a sign of depression

Before I tell you how to find depression in handwriting, permit me to tell you a small story. When I was learning handwriting analysis in Calcutta, I used to bank heavily on my friends and office colleagues whom I used to badger into giving me their handwriting samples for practice. And many did cooperate.

However, there was one friend who promised to give me her handwriting sample, but she never delivered. Interestingly, she did not even say she was not interested in getting her handwriting analysed. She just kept delaying, which was making me furious. In absence of a clear NO or a straight answer, my determination becomes like Samson (Radhas and Anuradhas in my life know that).

So at last, my determination and persistence assassinated her procrastination. One evening, she handed over to me one and a half pages of her handwriting sample on unlined paper. The moment I looked at it I discovered that the person behind the smiling face was like a frightened child with a traumatic childhood who believed nothing will work out for her. She felt cheated in her relationship because she had slept with her boyfriend who was now shamelessly exhibiting post-sex symptoms. Stalked by a feeling of sexual guilt coupled with the darkness that “engulfed” her future, she had become enormously depressed and was also contemplating suicide. Worse, she did not look beyond the relationship and refused to look at other options.

“What is this? You never told me anything. Relax, things will be alright…. Don’t worry,” I reassured her, trying to be as supportive as possible. I also gave her some graphotherapy exercises. She said she would practise them.

I left Calcutta soon after that. Six months later, I got to know she had gathered the courage to dump the scoundrel and was getting married to another person. I am not sure whether she completed the exercise or not. I am not much interested in knowing that. She is doing well and that is enough.

I can’t show you her handwriting, but I will surely tell you how I saw at once that she was depressed. The baseline (the imaginary straight line on which alphabets rest) of her handwriting was consistently going downhill. (See an imitation of her writing in picture A above). The other factor which complicated matters for her was the way she crossed her t-bars: they were really low on the stem (see in picture B given below).

People with low t-bars in their handwriting are shaken up by even small problems in life and tend to indulge in self-blame. They are often unable to leave the failures behind and believe that something wrong has happened to them because they “deserve” it. They keep on irrigating the land on which depression grows and thinking about suicide is very common for the depressed. If you feel this way, talk to somebody about it. If you think somebody else might be thinking this way, ask them about it. You might save a life — your own or someone else’s.

On the other hand, a person with high t-bars has a greater efficiency to fight and struggle to survive. Such a person possesses the strength to unload the baggage of the past. Likewise, if downhill baseline is indicative of depression and unhappiness, an uphill slant reflects utter optimism (see in picture C). Such writers always believe that things will for sure be better in future. And they are more successful too because they are always positive in their approach.

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