The Inconvenience of Dysthymia

I don't usually write about dysthymia, but I think it's time to. I'm not sure how much people who were never afflicted with dysthymia understand about it. It's essentially a chronic form of depression that is milder but more constant. It's present more often than not, over a period of months or years. Sometimes we get an episode of depression on top of it, and we call it double depression. It sucks.

I'm not experiencing an episode at the moment, thankfully. How does dysthymia feel like?

It feels like nothing, actually. It can manifest as numbness, a lack of emotion, sadness, heaviness, or all these at once. The limbs will feel heavy, the mind will feel dulled and energy would be low in general. I hate it.

Because of its chronic nature, it changes the life of the dysthymic. It affects the choices we make and the sort of jobs we take. It causes much difficulty for us to attain our full potential. Most of us could have achieved so much more if we weren't sick from it. A lot of us can't take up full-time jobs because we have too many down days. I would never say it's mild. It's destructive.

It affects our social circle because we don't have the motivation to go out. When energy is scarce and gatherings don't bring you joy, you just want to stay at home. It is not that we don't love our friends, we simply don't have the capacity to socialize at times. One night out with friends could mean exhaustion for the next few days.

It affects how we take care of ourselves. Because of our low energy, simple tasks become terribly difficult, this includes anything from getting out of bed to doing the laundry. To make things worse, dysthymics have a hard time feeling motivation and satisfaction, so it takes a lot of coaxing and determination to get anything done.

Take me for instance, I have been wanting to improve my diet - to eat clean, so I've been juicing. Though it's a simple task, the thought of juicing nevertheless fills me with dread because I think about the preparation work and feel overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed by washing and cutting the fruits the night before and then putting them in my nifty nutribullet the next morning.

I know how it sounds.

I can assure you it's not laziness. When I'm better, doing those things aren't a problem at all. I can make lunches the night before and do housework like normal people can. It is when I'm sick that doing these gives me an overpowering sense of dread. And this sickness is chronic.

The best I can do is try to ignore the dread and push myself through the motions. When that's done, I don't feel much. I'll just be dreading the next night's work. And this is only one aspect of my life. Put the same dread on commuting, 9 hours workdays, 5 days workweek, week after week. It's a constant dread we need to battle with.

And I wonder why I'm always exhausted.