In dystymic fog...

Hello. I just hope to hear stories from people who are dealing with dysthymia, constant mild depression. How you get through it and how you get better? How does it feel when you start to feel better?

Introduction

I felt like I started to struggle in my life and for a long time I refused to think of it as a depression, because in symptoms it felt so mild. I didn't even think there is something wrong, it felt normal. I felt like I could live normally if I just really want and motivate myself to focus and work hard. I thought I'm lazy and I need to improve my personality and be positve. I tried to improve several times but I failed and started to struggle more and more. I felt really inconsistent and there wasn't any continuity in anything, where I was trying to succeed.

Now, when I felt like I need to stop and think what is wrong with me, I have finally realised. After reading different stories, I could relate myself to stories from other people too much to not ignore it. It really scared me that there can this kind of form of depression...
People with dysthymia are mostly able to function and live normally (read: almost normally), but deep inside they are not pleased. Dysthymia can rob the will to succeed in life and ability to feel real happiness. People can go through the years, decades and even whole life not noticing the problems, because they don’t know any different.

Realisation time

After going through the last 10 years, now is the time I realise that I need to do something about it. Until now I just considered everything to be part of my personality and who I am, being lazy and not optimistic, not enjoying being social, not having desire in my heart. I start to find out about the little details piece by piece what are not part of normal and being happy. For example my room is a mess and I like it messy, because starting to clean it up requires too much energy. Mostly all I like to do, is „space out“ in my room and surf on the internet and wait for days go by. I do work out much and I always have. It feels better when I work out but there are short periods when I just don't have any motivation at all to work out. I feel alone and distant in this world, but I enjoy it. I feel safe this way. Sometimes I meet my friends, but I feel like outcast. I’m slowly pushing some people away from my life.

At the moment I have started to realise that I don’t even know what is „normal me“. It almost feels like my life got covered in fog very slowly. The speed of it has been so slow that I gradually adapted myself more and more to this situation. Now I feel like I’m lost in thick fog and I’m somewhere in desert having no idea where to go. Everything what happens in the world is muted. I don’t see the world in vibrant colours, everything seems dull. Even if something goes well in life, I don’t feel the real happiness. I’m not full of motivation or when I get motivated it’s just for a short period. I avoid taking on any activities where I fear the failing. Basicly I’m realising that I’m missing out most of the life and maybe experiencing only 50% of it.

So this is who I am now, I just want to be again that kid, who I was. I really want to experience the world like it is meant to be experienced.

Short story of my problems

I’m keeping it short and only talking mostly about school and studying. I’m 23 now, and I always felt something started to change when I was around 12-13, but I just considered these changes of part of who I am. I was a successful and bright kid, full of motivation and always hardworking. At some point everything got more difficult to handle. I wasn’t so motivated and full of spark anymore, but still I was quite successful. Although I didn’t have the desire to work hard anymore, I still achieved what I needed. As arrogant it sounds, it was probably because I am naturally smart and talented.

Anyway I finished high school with good results and got to study at university, what I wanted. Then I started to realise, that I can’t be in uni if I don’t have the desire to work hard and it became worse and worse. Soon everything what I needed to do in uni became unpleasant. I learned and did things only because needed, not that I really wanted. I somehow got through 2 years, but it became too stressful for me and I refused to go on and I gave up. I got a break from studying for few months and I changed to another school to have a fresh start. It went quite well, but as the time passed, now when I needed to work hard again everything started to turn the same way as it was.

When I now look back to the time when I was 12-13, the reality is that I had started losing my way since then and I wasn’t happy, I was slowly forgetting what „happy“ means. My mental abilities decreased and I couldn’t concentrate so well, my focus was very inconsistent. But I was smart and found out the ways how to got through the things with minimal effort. I always thought about trying harder to achieve the best results, but I easily got tired I just gave up on things and found an easy way.

That’s my story, I really hope to hear from someone.

Oh, it felt kind of therapeutic to write that story

Hello and welcome to PC.

I can relate. I happen to get very severe depressions but most of my life I would have to say I have been in mild depression. The key word you mentioned is motivation. Having natural motivation to do things compared to others seems to be a real problem for me. It sounds as if maybe it is getting worse for you as time goes on. For me it started when I was 13. I got through high school and did real well. Advanced classes and played sports, had lots of friends, etc. In college things started going down hill. I only did well in classes I liked because I was more motivated because I liked them. Then even they became to much. Like I said I have had varying degrees of depression but the mild to moderate has been persistent. I have had many long periods where from the outside someone would say I was functioning very well. In reality all my energy went into work and doing a good job at work which I did. But at home when no one was looking I just crashed. Never cleaned or did much else for long periods. Just sleep, eat, computer, and work. I have also had some very good periods as well where I did a lot more than just work.

To me it is a problem of motivation. Once I am able to force myself into putting in enough energy to get over the hump things purr along nicely until I crash again. Then I have to get over the hump again.

In chemistry there is something called the activation of energy. It means to get a reaction started you have to add quite a bit of energy to it. Lighting a match to start newspaper on fire to start wood on fire is an example.

In the curve below notice that the line on the left is low, lower energy. Then enough energy is added to get over the hump and the line on the right is higher, higher energy. Getting over the hump is our problem. Notice that if a catalyst is used the hump is much lower. In our case maybe that is something we are very interested in already, or say an antidepressant, or maybe things we learned in therapy that helps us with motivation. Say the line on the left is a normal person. Well our line on the left is much lower to begin with so it is even more energy we have to add to get going.

^ Wow thanks for that interesting analysis. For me all of this is new r9ght now... I mean that I don't know much about depression. At the moment I'm taking first steps to figure out what I should do to improve. I haven't seen or talked to any professionals yet, but even the realisation that, what I'm experiencing, is some form of depression, feels like big step forward at the moment.

Meds are probably not a great choice for mild to moderate. They have proven more effective for severe.

Other things are effective for mild to moderate though.

Therapy, CBT, DBT, other types.
Exercise
Diet
Supplements- 5HTP, St Johns Wort, L Methylfolate, B vitamins, Vitamin D, Fish oil, L tryptophan.
Meditation
Mindfulness
Journaling
A good support network, family, friends, healthy people, this site, etc.

I'd definitely go to a GP if I were you. They will rule out any physical causes that may under lie your concerns and they will assess whether the low mood is dysthymia or a high functioning depression or perhaps another mood disorder. You need to be sure that this is something in itself and not masking something else. Once you know that for sure then you can think about treatment options.

Thyroid is the first thing that should be checked.

Hi young porcupine,

The story of how I got better is here

http://forums.psychcentral.com/depre...n-escaped.html

It works for others too and it's super easy to try, not to mention lots of fun.

- vital

Thanks Vital!

Your story was really interesting and I will try to start using this magic trick.