In this article, we will tell you how to recognize and treat a little-known mental illness called dysthymia.

We all know what it's like to go through difficult times when it strangles us, and negative thoughts make you return again and again to the most bad moments our life. Sometimes, by rethinking these moments, we learn to overcome difficulties and begin to make plans for how to live further.

What if... does the sadness continue? Along with the internal discomfort, grief and despair that poison every day of our existence. In this case we're talking about about a disease called dysthymia, which is different from classic depression.

What is dysthymia?

This is a type of depression, but with some nuances in mood and behavior, that the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) immediately followed the diagnosis of persistent depressive disorder. Here are some of the main characteristics of dysthymia:

• This permanent state sadness and despondency. There are moments of improvement and deterioration, but, as a rule, this emotional state lasts at least two years.
• Please note that this disease is almost never associated with external factors, for example, death loved one or betrayal that causes people to become depressed. It's almost always a hereditary disease and, as a rule, women suffer from it.
• Dysthymia usually develops around age 21.
• There are quite severe cases when a person is not even able to take care of himself and needs to be fed and washed every day.
• Not only heredity, but also stress can cause this persistent feeling of despondency, because of which you can fall into even more serious condition than was mentioned above.
• Added to sadness are bad moods, insomnia, eating problems and difficulties with concentration.
• If dysthymia is not cured in time, it may progress to the next stage - major depressive disorder. This is a serious mental illness that can be accompanied by outbursts of anger, rage, and even suicide attempts. This is a very dangerous condition, so it is important to start treating it as early as possible.

How to treat dysthymia?

First of all, it is worth remembering that dysthymia is a disease that will have to be treated throughout your life. Is it possible to live normally with him? Of course yes. To do this you just need to follow a few rules:

• Take antidepressants
• Follow cognitive behavioral therapy, preferably group therapy.
• Be under medical supervision throughout your life.
• Count on the support of loved ones and society.

Keep in mind that the origin of dysthymia is due to heredity, hence it is organic. It is almost always accompanied by a slight change in the neurotransmitters serotonin. This means that medicines are quite effective in treating this disease, although medical assistance is certainly necessary.

Although treatment is lifelong, there are also positive points: thanks to qualified medical care you will be able to enjoy life, work, fulfill your desires and dreams.

Patients diagnosed with dysthymia should learn more about the problem and make great efforts to understand what is happening to them. This disease can be controlled, so patients should avoid anxiety, which may worsen the condition.

Remember that if anyone in your family has dysthymia, your chances of suffering from it are also very high. Take the necessary measures, talk to your doctor and follow his advice. In conclusion, we will tell you how to distinguish dysthymia from normal:

• Dysthymia appears around age 21 or earlier.
• This is a constant state of sadness and despondency without any specific reason.
• It can last from one and a half to two years and without treatment can go into the stage of severe depression, accompanied by suicide attempts.

Don't let this happen!

Feelings and emotions are closely related to our internal qualities, they are simply a reflection of what is happening inside us. We are often afraid and deny our own emotions, confuse emotions with feelings, feelings with states.

After talking with people, attending many trainings and conducting more than one consultation, we became convinced that people are not at all aware of their emotions. Oh no, they are not insensitive idiots, they continue to experience the whole range of emotions, without completely understanding what emotion they are experiencing in at the moment. The simplest and most common question in all trainings and psychological consultations: “How are you feeling now?” - confuses people.

It is absolutely impossible to deal with your problems if you cannot even determine how you feel about this or that person or situation, or about this or that event.

What causes feelings and emotions

Not only are our feelings and emotions not recognized in themselves, but their causes remain a mystery to many.

Emotions and feelings huge amount and there is no definitive list of them either in psychology or physiology. The reason for this is that many emotions and feelings are purely social phenomena. The emergence of new emotions or their acquisition of a different meaning is due to the development of society. We do not feel many emotions and feelings at birth, but we learn them from our parents, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and even from the TV and film industry. All of them taken together from the very early childhood show and tell us what we should feel, how and in what situations. If you do not experience a certain range of feelings and sensations on some specific occasion, you are considered strange, not of this world, or even better - insensitive and selfish.

Innate human emotions

In addition to socially determined emotions, there are also innate ones. These are the emotions that a baby has from birth. Some experts classify as innate emotions those that appear in a baby soon after birth, where social factor and parental training appears to play a minimal role. The list of these emotions is very small and neither scientists nor psychologists have come to a consensus on which emotions should be included. Many agree that joy - contentment, interest - excitement, surprise - fear, anger - anger, disgust, fear - these are the emotions that are innate, the rest were taught to us.

We think it’s time to “take our head out of the sand” and figure out what we really feel, what caused this emotion in us and who “taught” us to feel this way and not otherwise.

Read and be surprised :-)

A

Excitement- an emotional state that is very different strong interest to what is happening and a persistent desire to continue.

Types of excitement:

• Resource passion - in this state the effectiveness of actions is very high.

The excitement of doing something you love; the passion of an entrepreneur; excitement in mastering new knowledge.

• Gambling is destructive - in it, self-control, as a rule, is lost.

Gambler's excitement in a casino.

Apathy - a state of complete indifference, disinterest, lack of emotions and feelings. A person with apathetic manifestations experiences neither pleasure nor displeasure. Apathy is often seen as a result of severe and prolonged severe stress. It is a product of a defensive struggle against unbearable feelings of despair and loneliness or the threat of death. Outwardly, manifestations of apathy have the character of alienation - “refusal” from the objective world, but analysis often reveals preserved unconscious attachments, denied or disavowed by the defense.

B

Serenity - an imperturbably calm state.

Hopelessness - complete despair, lack of any hope.

Safety - This is a calm and confident state of mind in a person who considers himself protected from threat or danger.

Indifference - a state of complete indifference, disinterest.

Anxiety - an emotional state characterized by the experience of excitement, anxiety, discomfort, and an unpleasant premonition of evil. Arises under the influence of poorly understood and unknown factors external environment or internal state the person himself.

Helplessness - a negative state caused by unfavorable situations that cannot be prevented or overcome.

Powerlessness - confusion and severe annoyance at the realization of the impossibility of improving the difficult state of affairs, getting out of a dangerous or difficult situation.

Rabies - state of extreme irritation.

Gratitude - a feeling of obligation, respect and love for another person (in particular, expressed in appropriate actions) for a benefit done to him.

Bliss - a state of complete and undisturbed happiness, pleasure, a state of supreme satisfaction, supersensual unearthly happiness.

Cheerfulness - a state of high energy, excess strength and desire to do something.

Pain - a painful sensation reflecting the psychophysiological state of a person, which occurs under the influence of super-strong or destructive stimuli. Heartache- this is a specific mental experience that is not associated with organic or functional disorders. Often accompanied by depression and mental illness. Most often it is long-lasting and associated with the loss of a loved one.

Disgust - exactingness, fastidiousness regarding cleanliness, compliance with hygiene rules (regarding food, clothing, etc.).

IN

Inspiration - a state of lightness, the ability to create, a feeling of “everything is within my power, everything works out!”, doing with enthusiasm and pleasure. A state of spiritual renewal, new birth, the will to creativity, elation, inner insight and passion.

Fun - a carefree and joyful mood, characterized by a desire to laugh and have fun.

Guilt - an affective state characterized by the manifestation of fear, remorse and self-reproach, a feeling of one’s own insignificance, suffering and the need for repentance.

Falling in love - a strong, positively colored feeling (or complex of feelings), the object of which is another person, accompanied by a narrowing of consciousness, which may result in a distorted assessment of the object of love.Acute emotional experience, attraction to an object sexual choice. V. can quickly fade away or turn into a stable feeling of love.

Lust - passionate desire, strong sensual attraction, sexual attraction.

Outrage - extreme dissatisfaction, indignation, anger.

Mental excitement - same as physiological affect, a condition that reduces a person’s ability to understand the meaning of his or her actions or to direct them.

Inspiration- increased desire to do something. Inspiration is a precursor to inspiration, a slightly less emotionally vibrant state. Inspiration arises and develops from inspiration.

Delight - overflowing joy. What will this overflow of energy result in? The next question is...

Admiration - a joyful state of admiration, radiance from beauty and gratitude for beauty.

Hostility - strong dislike for someone, including hatred, ill will.

Arrogance - to look at someone from the height of one’s greatness is contemptuous arrogance. Negative moral quality, characterizing a disrespectful, contemptuous, arrogant attitude towards other people (individuals, certain social strata or people in general), associated with exaggeration of one’s own own merits I am selfish.

G

Anger- targeted aggression through open direct pressure on a partner. The world is hostile. Anger is usually expressed by an energetic, powerful scream.

Pride- a feeling of strength, freedom and height of position. Respect for a person, oneself for one’s own or someone else’s achievements that seem significant.

Pride- this is crooked pride. A person's confidence that he himself is the only reason for his success. “I know for everyone what’s best for everyone.”

Sadness- emotional state when the world around us it seems gray, alien, hard and uncomfortable, painted in beautiful transparent grays and minor tones. Often, when you feel sad, you want to cry, you want to be alone. In sadness, the world is not yet hostile, but it is no longer friendly: it is only ordinary, inconvenient and alien, caustic. Usually the cause of sadness is a difficult event in life: separation from a loved one, loss of a loved one. Sadness is not an innate emotion, but an acquired one.

D

Duality- a feeling of duality, as a result of opposing internal urges to do something.

U

Respect- the position of one person in relation to another, recognition of the merits of the individual. A position that prescribes not to harm another: neither physically - through violence, nor morally - through judgment.

Confidence - mental state a person in whom he considers some information to be true. Confidence is psychological characteristics faith and belief of a person. Confidence can be a result own experience personality and as a result of external influence. For example, confidence can appear in a person in addition to (and sometimes against) his will and consciousness under the influence of suggestion. A person can also induce a feeling of confidence through self-hypnosis (for example, autogenic training).

Hobby (extra valuable)- a one-sided and intense hobby that occupies an inappropriate place in a person’s life, having a disproportionate impact on him great value, special meaning. The ability to become strongly involved in something or someone is associated with the system personal values and ideals. This is, for example, sports fanaticism, which may hide a feeling of inferiority, or too close attention attention paid to one’s appearance, which may hide self-doubt.

Astonishment- is a short-term, quickly passing reaction to a sudden, unexpected event; a mental state when something seems strange, unusual, unexpected. Surprise occurs when there is dissonance between a person’s imaginary picture of the world and what is actually happening. The greater the dissonance, the greater the surprise.

Satisfaction- a feeling of contentment and joy about the fulfillment of one’s desires and needs, about successful conditions, one’s actions, etc. Satisfaction usually comes when a goal is achieved. For young children, satisfaction can still be brought by the work itself, the process, and not the results of its implementation. Due to socialization, it is becoming increasingly difficult for adults to receive satisfaction from the process.

Pleasure- a feeling, experience that accompanies the satisfaction of a need or interest (the same as pleasure). Pleasure accompanies the decrease internal tension(physical and mental), helps restore the vital functions of the body. Behind pleasure there is always a desire, which, ultimately, as an individual desire, society seeks to take control of. However, in the process of socialization, the natural attitude towards pleasure is limited. Expanding functional contacts with others require a person to control his desire for pleasure, delay receiving pleasure, tolerate displeasure, etc. The principle of pleasure manifests itself in opposition to social demands and rules and acts as the basis of personal independence: in pleasure a person belongs to himself, is freed from obligations and in this regard is sovereign.

Dejection– a depressed, painful, languid state (from poverty, illness, other unfavorable circumstances, due to serious failures).

Horror– sudden and strong fear, internal trembling, highest degree fear, permeated with despair and hopelessness when faced with something threatening, unknowable and alien; dizziness from the premonition of a total fiasco. Horror for a person is always forced, imposed from the outside - even in the case when it comes to mental obsession.

Tenderness- a feeling of calm, sweet pity, humility, contrition, spiritual, welcoming participation, goodwill.

Pacification- a state of complete peace and satisfaction.

Humiliation– individual or group actions aimed at lowering a person’s status, usually in some way that embarrasses or offends the person. Some common actions, considered humiliating are offensive words, gestures, body movements, slaps, spitting in his direction, etc. Some experts believe that key point is that humiliation is determined by the consciousness of the humiliated himself. In order to be humiliated, a person must consider the action humiliating. For some people, humiliation is a pleasure and a source of arousal (for example, in sexual role playing games), but for the vast majority - a difficult test that they do not want to undergo. Humiliation is accompanied by extremely painful emotional shock and affects the most sensitive parts of human self-esteem. If you hit it too hard, even modest person may respond with aggression.

Dejection– hopeless sadness, loss of spirit, loss of hope for achieving what is desired or essential.

Rapture- a state of delight, pleasure, “admiration, delight, moral, spiritual intoxication.”

Fatigue- a physical and mental state of fatigue, characterized by weakened reactions, lethargy, drowsiness, and inattention. Fatigue comes from overload, from strong voltage, from experiencing difficulties, grief, conflicts, from long periods of tedious, routine work. This condition is the result of either poor work organization or poor health, but the cause of fatigue is large quantities unresolved interpersonal and internal conflicts which, as a rule, are not realized.

F

Frustration- a state that arises as a result of anxiety about the impossibility of achieving goals and satisfying drives, the collapse of plans and hopes.

Sh

Shock (emotional)- a strong emotion accompanied by physiological shocks. Shock occurs as a result of the appearance of a new element in life to which the subject is not able to immediately adapt.

Psychologists distinguish:

• weak and fleeting shock, at the level of pleasant and unpleasant;
• shock causing more or less long-term maladjustment (strong emotion, loss of a dear being);
• shock, causing long-term maladjustment and thereby even leading to madness.

E

Euphoria- a mental state of joyful excitement and enthusiasm, accompanied by high spirits, excitement, and jubilation.

Exaltation- an emotional state of elevated liveliness with a tinge of unnatural enthusiasm, which seems to have no reason. It manifests itself either in the form of a dreamy mood or inexplicable inspiration.

Ecstasy- the highest degree of delight, inspiration, sometimes on the verge of frenzy.

Enthusiasm- an emotional state characterized by pronounced self-motivation. A very resourceful state that can quickly fade away.

I

Fury- strong, violently manifested anger, fury, impulse strong passion With aggressive behavior, an extreme form of anger. Active opposition to what we consider evil, a desire to fight, to fight for our idea, rights, freedom, independence or other values. A person in a state of Rage has virtually no control over his actions in a conflict.

Sadness is a negatively colored emotion. Occurs when a person is significantly dissatisfied with any aspect of his life. The concept of sadness is considered the opposite of joy and is close in meaning to such as sadness, melancholy, despondency, grief, melancholy. Sometimes these words are considered synonyms. In the clinical state, sadness turns into depressive states body. This can lead to constant bouts of melancholy, bad mood, and inability to do normal daily activities.
Sadness is characterized by a weak, shallow and short-term experience. Unlike similar emotions, sadness is the least unpleasant experience. In some cases it can be pleasant (the so-called “light sadness”). Sadness is not necessarily the result of a strong shock or psychological trauma; it is often an ordinary, non-clinical phenomenon. Unlike more strong emotions, sadness does not disrupt a person’s normal performance, it only reduces his vitality.
Yearning
Longing is the most powerful, intense and lasting feeling. It is characterized by the greatest unpleasantness of the experience.
Dejection
Dejection (Latin acedia), unlike sadness and melancholy, obviously does not have motivational power. If sadness and melancholy can be accompanied by a desire to change the situation for the better, then with despondency there is no such desire. Dejection is characterized by the greatest motor retardation and decreased performance. Dejection, in contrast to melancholy and sadness, is to some extent determined by a person’s predisposition to bad mood. It can indicate long-term chronic bad mood.
Wikipedia writes: “Despondency (Latin acedia) is a negatively colored mood, a depressed state of mind, accompanied by general decline strength Severe sadness is characteristic of depression and can precede suicide."
Sadness
Sadness is more vague in this aspect. She takes intermediate position between melancholy, despondency and sadness, leaning closer to one or the other.
Sorrow
Grief usually occurs as a result of the loss or loss of a loved one. Any loss, even the loss of any value, causes difficult feelings, but the most great pain associated with the death of a loved one and the loss of physical or mental capabilities - disability (Wikipedia).

Osho (Ocho) about sadness.

Depression is suppressed anger. The word depression is a telling word. Press means to press. When you suppress anger too often, it turns into sadness. Sadness is the negative aspect of anger. Sadness is more common in women. If you stop suppressing it, it will turn into anger. We were angry about something, perhaps even in childhood, but we didn’t express it in any way; hence the depression. Depression is not a problem. Real, the real problem– anger. By continuing to condemn depression, we are fighting a shadow. Where does depression come from? We contain anger - towards our mother, our father, towards ourselves, towards the world around us. Since it is believed that anger is bad, from childhood we try to smile. We were taught this well. We put on a smile, we suppress our anger. Now we can't get rid of it - that's what depression is.

Give your anger an outlet. Once anger comes to the surface, depression will disappear. Have you ever noticed how good it sometimes feels after an angry outburst?
Do anger meditation every day...20 minutes is enough. On the third day, you will begin to perform this exercise with anticipation. This will bring you great relief...you will see your depression disappear. You will truly smile for the first time. When you were depressed you couldn't smile, you pretended. Since a person cannot help but smile, he is forced to pretend - but this hurts very much. It doesn't make you happy; but it reminds you how unhappy you are. If you realize this, good. Everything that causes us pain brings benefit. People are so sick that even what benefits them hurts them. But that's good.
A.S. Pushkin wrote:
* * *
“The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia;
Aragva makes noise in front of me.
I feel sad and light; my sadness is light;
My sadness is full of you,
By you, by you alone... My despondency
Nothing torments, nothing worries,
And the heart burns and loves again - because
That it cannot help but love."

E.P. Ilyin in his book “Emotions and Feelings” writes:
"Sadness

Sadness, according to S.I. Ozhegov’s “Dictionary of the Russian Language,” is a state of mental bitterness. It is well described by S. Yesenin:

Sad... Mental anguish
The heart is tormented and torn,
Time's boring sounds
They don't even let me breathe.

You lie down and have a bitter thought
It doesn't go crazy...
The noise makes my head spin.
How can I be... and myself

My soul is languishing.
There is no consolation in anyone.
You walk barely breathing.
It's dark and wild all around.

Share, why are you given!
There's nowhere to lay your head
Life is both bitter and poor,
It's hard to live without happiness.

Sadness may be caused by separation, psychological isolation(the so-called feeling of loneliness) and failure to achieve a goal, disappointment, i.e., unfulfilled hope. The latter means nothing more than the loss of a dream. Thus, the main and universal cause of sadness is the loss of something significant for a person: direct psychological contact with a loved one or with other people (feeling of loneliness), loss of perspective in achieving the desired goal.

The role of sadness in a person’s spiritual life, in the formation of stable connections with people we value, is obvious (for example, the manifestation of sadness in the form of grief over the death of a loved one; see paragraph 7.8). True, although sadness is attributed to negative emotions, it can accompany positive experiences and feelings of a person. No wonder one song says that “love is never without sadness,” because separation from a loved one leads to sadness. Quiet sadness can be pleasant to a person.

As Izard notes, “sadness, by slowing down the overall pace of a person’s life, gives him the opportunity to “look back.” Slowing down the mental and somatic processes that accompany the emotion of sadness allows you to take a fresh look at the world, to see it differently. This new perspective may make the sadness worse, but it can also refresh one's perspective and allow one to understand things one has not thought about before. So, in your sadness, you suddenly realize how many precious opportunities life has given you, you have missed. Sometimes, only after losing a loved one do we begin to understand what kinship and family ties mean in our lives. Sadness can remind you how important it is to show affection. dear people, will allow you to acutely appreciate the value of life” (2000, p. 201). The signaling role of the emotion of sadness is also important: by expressing sadness, a person shows other people that he feels bad, he needs help and support. Indeed, the expression of sadness evokes sympathy from others, even if this sadness is the sadness of a criminal (Savitsky, Sim, 1974).

With sadness, changes occur that are the opposite of those observed with joy: inhibition of motor skills, narrowing of blood vessels. This causes a feeling of cold and chills. The narrowing of the small vessels of the lungs leads to the outflow of blood from them, as a result, the supply of oxygen to the body worsens and the person begins to feel a lack of air, tightness and heaviness in the chest. Trying to alleviate this condition, he begins to take long and deep breaths. Appearance also reveals a sad person. His movements are slow, his arms and head are lowered; the voice is weak, and the speech is slow and drawn out. Sadness may be accompanied by crying or sobbing.

In a saddened person, the inner ends of the eyebrows are raised and brought together to the bridge of the nose, the eyes are slightly narrowed, and the corners of the mouth are lowered. It is characteristic that clearly facial expressions of sadness can be expressed only for a few seconds, but its experience can last a very long time. True, at the same time, some facial signs still remain: the face looks faded, lacking muscle tone, the eyes seem dull.

Characteristic of the experience of sadness is a feeling of heaviness throughout the body. Perceiving the world around him, a person sees only darkness and emptiness around him, life seems gray and dull to him. When there is intense sadness, a person experiences pain in the chest.

Sadness slows down not only a person’s physical, but also mental activity. The emotion of sadness underlies this mental disorder like depression.

According to S.I. Ozhegov, hopeless sadness is despondency, and slight sadness is sadness.
Dejection

This emotional state is understood by S.I. Ozhegov (1985) in two ways: as oppressive boredom and as hopeless sadness. It seems to me that this understanding of despondency is psychological point vision is not entirely accurate. The understanding of despondency as boredom is rather everyday, as illustrated, for example, set phrase“dull landscape,” that is, monotonous, boring. Let us remember A. S. Pushkin, who wrote about autumn: “ It's a sad time! The charm of the eyes! Another thing is despondency as a person’s emotional state. Of course, to some extent, it may also contain boredom as a loss of interest in what is happening, but the main cognitive component of this emotion seems to be an assessment of the hopelessness of the situation associated with satisfying a need, desire, and achieving what is planned and desired. Despondency grips fans after their favorite team loses a match that was important for winning a prize. An applicant who received the first entrance exam to the institute with a low grade, leaving him little chance of overall success. Thus, despondency is associated with unfavorable prognosis on the outcome of a process that has not yet ended, when there are still some chances of success and achieving the goal. When a person is overcome by a feeling of hopelessness or the outcome becomes completely clear, other emotions arise - disappointment, despair, sadness, grief" (1, pp. 183-186).

Literature:
1. Ilyin E.P. Emotions and feelings, St. Petersburg,: Peter, 2008.
2. Osho. About feelings M.: LLC Sofia, 2010.