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Sad all the time? Dysthymia

white knight
Community Champion
Community Champion

It's difficult to describe but if you see and feel sadness in most things in life you could have dysthymia. Constant, uncontrollable crying, thinking often about sad topics.

A proper diagnosis is needed. This illness generally develops prior to adulthood and can be described as a constant low mood depression. You can google "dysthymia mood disorder" to receive a full description.

The disorder makes one feel alone, desperate and unusual. I have a friend I went to school with, he never cried in 35 years I knew him until his father died. He was uncontrollable that funeral day. The next day we chatted. I mentioned that his state the day before was how I felt every second day. He got some idea of the magnitude. Soon after I got the diagnosis

Bipolar2, depression, anxiety and...dysthymia. my psychiatrist discovered that a near drowning of my brother when I was 12yo was the spark, the shock that set it off. I didnt talk for 3 months after that incident and was highly emotional ever since until 2009 when he prescribed medication.

Since then my life has turned around in terms of sadness. If you believe your level of sadness is high, constant and you feel desperate, even suicidal, you might have dysthymia. It effects more women than men, can come about if you have a parent with a mental illness or if you suffered trauma at a young age.

Seek help. The difference to your life will be much more positive.

Tony WK

22 Replies 22

Hi interloper

Thankyou for your comments

I am not a mefucal profesdional but I tend to dusagree with what youve said.

See you are describing a fully negative mentality, that the "cons always win". In fact pros and vons are almost equal in life. If you dont see life that way then your vision of life is overall negative.

Dysthymia is full of sadness but it doesn't have to have the element of negativity.

In 1982 I attended a lecture that changed my life. It was a seed planted of positivity that was developed thereon by myself. Yet dysthymia continued to this day 35 years later.

Maybe reading the below thread might see the impact if going from a negative to positive frame of mind can do. Use google

Topic: 30 minutes can change your life- beyondblue

Tony WK

73Bonneville
Community Member

So would being upset or sad because of the passing of time also be a form of dysthymia?

On bad days (and I still have too many of them), I can get really sad and even cry thinking of the past. I keep comparing now to then and how I seemed happier then. The kids were little, we played, rode our bikes, etc. I get upset seeing school kids thinking how that time is over for us. I will continuously go back over the years, wanting to know exactly what year it was when things happened. I struggle looking at photos from the past because I get too upset. I have trouble getting rid of stuff and seem to just want to hang on to the past. As a result I feel that I am not enjoying the present wasting time. Not sure what this condition is called. I will see if I can discuss with my GP.

Yes 73, you described it well. Crying over the past, about life, about nostalgia, about deep topics.

Music strikes a cord with me to. Emotional movies. Eg

the thorn birds...where the priest was the father of a child but he never knew for 25 years.

Countless other movies to get me emotional.

Tony WK