A lot of people have a hard time understanding the difference between depression and dysthymia.

Certainly I can get that because you know technically dysthymia is a form of depression. So of course it’s hard to distinguish it and most healthcare professionals choose not to in my experience. Semantics and unnecessary particularness and whatnot, I suppose is their reasoning.

I often try to use metaphors for basically everything… ever. And so I’m going to try again with the difference between clinical depression and dysthymia.

When someone is clinically depressed, I’ve often heard them describe it as like drowning in rough waters. That seems about right.

Dysthymia on the other hand is everything leading up to drowning, then repeating the cycle again. Dysthymia is treading in a calm expanse. Seems sunny enough and not really all that fatal. You’re just all alone in this pretty peaceful sea, treading water.

But you know, no matter how strong and confident you start out, you know you’re pretty soggy and kind of cold. This doesn’t really bother you yet, you’re used to it by now maybe, and besides you’ve got plenty of energy to tread, right? Well… eventually energy runs out. Eventually your body starts getting tired. Eventually every movement causes protest in your muscles. Eventually… you can’t keep up.

You try and try and gosh darn it you try so very fucking hard. You even let yourself sink a little to get a few seconds worth of energy back in you. The water that was so calm now seems so terrible. It hasn’t changed but you’re thrashing around in it regardless. You’re drowning, even though nothing’s different other than your tolerance.

And then you sink. Your body gives out. Your lungs burned too hot, your muscles screamed too loudly. You couldn’t take it and you can’t help but quit. And so you sink, maybe pretty deeply, maybe not deeply at all. And most often, you end up bobbing back up, either regaining a surge of energy, or managing to catch hold of something that pulled you back up and you could temporarily rest with. Anyway, you’re back up, and you’re back to treading.

For some people, they can tread a long time. For some people, they could tread longer at the beginning than they can now. But anyway, everyone has different lengths of tolerance before they sink. And for some people, they sink too far and never come back up. For most people with dysthymia, though, they manage to make it back to the surface somehow and repeat the cycle, unless something is done.

What happens with dysthymia is that you are pretty “soggy” and “cold” and sometimes slowly tiring out before you have a big drop into clinical-grade depression. You’re Eeyore, pretty gloomy but still an all right and sane person, and then you’re trying to kill yourself. It’s a cycle of cruising at a certain rate along the line of despair and hopelessness, and maybe suddenly dropping into the red zone or slowly descending towards this red zone.

In essence it’s like treading water and slowly sinking or suddenly giving out.

Now some people are lucky enough to have inner tubes frequently floating by that they can cling to until the tubes lose air. And some people get buoys that they can always cling to forever. In the end, though, they’re still soggy and cold. Unless they can manage to climb out of the water, which some can and do, and some can and won’t, and some can’t at all. The thing with dysthymia is that it’s so pervasive and a steady low constant that people think this is just how life is. The boiling frog affect - where a frog won’t get into a hot pot, but they’ll sit in a pot as it slowly heats up, completely unsuspecting. We just get used to this constant gentle drum against the back of our heads, and so even when we realize that is NOT how it’s supposed to be, we fear getting out of the water. We feel uncomfortable and exposed and unwitting. It’s better to be in the water and feel the constant lap and tug. It’s soothing even if it makes us cold and soggy and tired, because hey it’s not perfect but it’s also not the arctic. And so, when the chance presents itself to get out, some of us won’t, or we will for a little while and slowly slink back into the water. It’s the same reason why some of the most outspoken people against civil rights are minorities and underprivileged people themselves, it’s the same reason why some people stay in abusive relationships and spaces. Change is scary, after all, even if it’s touted as being positive change.

Well anyway, that’s kind of like what dysthymia is about.