Duncans Thoughts

Depression, Dysthymia and mood swings.
3 Different terms for the same symptoms, known mostly as depression. he term mood swings is not an official one, but rather I would call i periods of Recurrent brief depression, but these rapid mood change cycles have never been continuous for over a year.

Dysthymia
Basically, dysthymia can been seen as you mood baseline. the basic way you feel, if you filter out other mood modifiers as good or bad news, or the depressions. Now if this baseline mood is lower hen what you feel as being completely neutral, witch is ’supposed’ to be the baseline, you might have dysthymia.

I did not know I had dysthymia, up until diagnosed (I was even a bit annoyed as the psychologist kept on asking about it). I had the idea hat it was ‘normal’ for everyone to have a default mood of being unhappy.Probably because I had this dysthymia since my early teens, I kind thought it was a normal result of puberty that lasted. That it was part of he daily struggle of life.

Depression
I think the idea of depression is quite clear for everyone. I have had several ones but the hardest one was right during and after the breakdown and the identity crisis.

Mood swings
his is usually he mos tricky one, since they come with little to no warning. I do feel a change in myself (hormones, tension? I am not sure what i exactly feel only that I feel it) and i know it is a moodswing. the change can take as little as 5 minutes, or as much as one or 2 days. I cannot predict that. But I can nearly always predict if my mood goes up or down.

All together
Depression, dysthymia and mood swings can be stacked. They don’t replace each other. his means that a depression with a low mood swing can be extra hard on you, and often causes yourself wondering why you live. or in more extreme cases thinking of suicide.