Understanding Dysthymia: A Chronic, Low-Grade Depression

You’ve brushed aside the chronic low mood, exhaustion and lack of motivation for months, maybe even years. Underestimating the long-term impacts of dysthymia however, could have serious effects on your overall success and your health.

Do you feel like you’re never really happy? For people living with dysthymia, a chronic, low-grade form of depression, life often feels flat. The joys and excitement that seem to brighten other people’s lives are muted or missing, and while things might not be terrible, they are definitely not great. 

People living with dysthymia often ascribe their low mood to certain events or personal relationships without considering the possibility that they may be affected by a mental health condition. Dysthymia is not only a serious condition, but a treatable one, and with the right resources people can greatly improve their overall mood and outlook on life. 

What is Dysthymia and What Causes It?

Dysthymia, also knows as persistent depressive disorder, is a less severe form of chronic depression that is significant enough to negatively impact people’s daily lives, relationships and self-esteem. Dysthymia is characterised by its constancy; while people with major depressive disorder will experience periods of severe, acute depression, this is generally followed by periods of relief from these symptoms. Dysthymia, on the other hand, is a pervasive feeling of low mood and exhaustion that can extend for months or years. While people with dysthymia can have “good days”, these occur less frequently than those where they feel depressed.

People with dysthymia are likely to have at least one major depressive episode in their lives that overlaps with their dysthymia, further exacerbating their symptoms. Common symptoms of dysthymia include:

• A feeling of depression nearly every day that lasts for most of the day
• Low self-esteem
• Sleep troubles
• Feeling hopeless
• Overeating or loss of appetite
• Lack of energy or fatigue
• Inability to concentrate, difficulty making decisions or focusing

Like many mental health disorders, the exact cause of dysthymia isn’t known. However, both biological and situational factors can increase the risk for developing this disorder. These factors include: 

• Substance misuse
• Family history of a depressive disorder
• Chronic physical illness, such as diabetes or chronic pain
• History of other mental health conditions

For people living with dysthymia, the most important breakthrough is to realise that a persistent low mood isn’t normal, and that resources are available to help ease symptoms and discover joy in life.

What are the Long-Term Effects of Dysthymia?

If dysthymia is left untreated, it can cause significant effects to both physical and mental health that can also impact professional and personal opportunities. Recognising these effects and their links to dysthymia is important in creating awareness of this condition and spurring motivation to seek treatment.

Poor Self-Esteem

The persistent low mood caused by dysthymia steadily erodes self-confidence, generally causing people living with this condition to suffer from low self-esteem. This can lead to a loss of opportunity in nearly all arenas of life. People with dysthymia often don’t feel the excitement around positive new possibilities that motivates others to take chances or push themselves to do better, and instead are consumed by doubts, exhaustion, and feelings of being overwhelmed. While difficult to measure, dysthymia has the potential to drastically limit the personal growth and happiness of those it affects.

Self-Medication

Just as substance misuse can be a risk factor for developing dysthymia, living with dysthymia puts you at risk for substance misuse. This is linked to the drive to self-medicate in order to alleviate the discomfort brought on by the symptoms of this disorder. Unfortunately, while the short-term effects of self-medication may be temporarily successful in numbing feelings of depression, the long-term impacts of substance misuse can actually further entrench dysthymia.

Threats to Physical Health

Though dysthymia is considered to be a milder form of depression compared to major depressive disorder, its chronic nature and the tendency of people living with it to have overlapping episodes of acute depression both contribute to a higher risk for suicidal ideation and self-harm. Additionally, lack of motivation around self-care or attention to healthy habits can lead to diminished physical health, and exacerbation of chronic conditions.