Dysthymia & Depression
Dear Broken Hearted Girl,
We all know that I'm not a doctor, but sometimes I come across articles that have to do with different disorders that affect a lot of women. A lot of times, depressions can take hold in your life before you even begin a relationship, and may continue to be an issue after the relationship has ended. Dysthymia seems to be making the headlines a lot lately, and I hope this article helps some of you who may have felt mildly depressed for years at a time.
Check out this article from everydayhealth.com.
Feel better!
MJ
Mental health professionals use the term dysthymia (dis-THIGH-me-ah) to refer to a low-level drone of depression that lasts for at least two years in adults or one year in children and teens. While not as crippling as major depression, its persistent hold can keep you from feeling good and can intrude upon your work, school, and social life. If you were to equate depression with the color black, dysthymia might be likened to a dim gray. Unlike major depression, in which relatively short episodes may be separated by considerable spans of time, dysthymia lasts for an average of at least five years.
If you suffer from dysthymia, more often than not you feel depressed during most of the day. You may carry out daily responsibilities, but much of the zest is gone from your life. Your depressed mood doesn’t lift for more than two months at a time, and you also have at least two of the following symptoms:
overeating or loss of appetite
insomnia or sleeping too much
tiredness or lack of energy
low self-esteem
trouble concentrating or making decisions
hopelessness.
Sometimes an episode of major depression occurs on top of dysthymia; this is known as double depression.
Dysthymia often begins in childhood, the teen years, or early adulthood. Being drawn into this low-level depression appears to make major depression more likely. In fact, up to 75% of people who are diagnosed with dysthymia will have an episode of major depression within five years.
It’s difficult to escape the grasp of untreated dysthymia. Only about 10% of people spontaneously emerge from it in a given year. Some appear to get beyond it for as long as two months, only to spiral downward again. However, proper treatment eases dysthymia and other depressive disorders in about four out of five people.
We all know that I'm not a doctor, but sometimes I come across articles that have to do with different disorders that affect a lot of women. A lot of times, depressions can take hold in your life before you even begin a relationship, and may continue to be an issue after the relationship has ended. Dysthymia seems to be making the headlines a lot lately, and I hope this article helps some of you who may have felt mildly depressed for years at a time.
Check out this article from everydayhealth.com.
Feel better!
MJ
Mental health professionals use the term dysthymia (dis-THIGH-me-ah) to refer to a low-level drone of depression that lasts for at least two years in adults or one year in children and teens. While not as crippling as major depression, its persistent hold can keep you from feeling good and can intrude upon your work, school, and social life. If you were to equate depression with the color black, dysthymia might be likened to a dim gray. Unlike major depression, in which relatively short episodes may be separated by considerable spans of time, dysthymia lasts for an average of at least five years.
If you suffer from dysthymia, more often than not you feel depressed during most of the day. You may carry out daily responsibilities, but much of the zest is gone from your life. Your depressed mood doesn’t lift for more than two months at a time, and you also have at least two of the following symptoms:
overeating or loss of appetite
insomnia or sleeping too much
tiredness or lack of energy
low self-esteem
trouble concentrating or making decisions
hopelessness.
Sometimes an episode of major depression occurs on top of dysthymia; this is known as double depression.
Dysthymia often begins in childhood, the teen years, or early adulthood. Being drawn into this low-level depression appears to make major depression more likely. In fact, up to 75% of people who are diagnosed with dysthymia will have an episode of major depression within five years.
It’s difficult to escape the grasp of untreated dysthymia. Only about 10% of people spontaneously emerge from it in a given year. Some appear to get beyond it for as long as two months, only to spiral downward again. However, proper treatment eases dysthymia and other depressive disorders in about four out of five people.
posted by MJ @ 9:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home